


Kindling By Measure

by acedavestrider



Series: Kindling By Measure [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, M/M, Quests, Slow Burn, Trolls are Gods (Homestuck), begrudging travel partners to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 74,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24683530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acedavestrider/pseuds/acedavestrider
Summary: In a desperate attempt to bring your sister back to life you land yourself ass first in the realm of the dead, and in front of Karkat Vantas.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Series: Kindling By Measure [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1909285
Comments: 320
Kudos: 413





	1. Chapter 1

**"This world order, the same for all, no god made or any man, but it always was and is and will be an ever-living fire, kindling by measure and going out by measure." - Heraclitus** **of Ephesus**

* * *

Alternia is not a nice place. This is something you realize immediately upon reaching the entrance, almost as soon as you cross a specific threshold sometime during your long descent. The heat of the air spikes up dramatically, prickling at the back of your neck while your ears start to pop in an odd rhythm from the sudden change in pressure. If not for the fact that you’re already sweating profusely, you would no doubt start perspiring from the suffocating humidity alone. You let a brief, sharp flare of panic well up inside you for a moment, the fear that maybe you took a wrong turn and are about to end up head first in Derse, before you quell the feeling altogether. You don’t have time to panic right now. 

The entrance is significantly less grandiose than you expect, and there’s a noticeable lack of dead people around. There are two doors ahead of you, large but not gaudily so, leading to what you can only assume are Prospit and Derse, respectively. There’s an uncomfortable looking throne sitting between them, though it’s empty, and you find yourself looking around for wherever the entrance to Skaia would be, eyes flitting about for some kind of well-lit hallway with a chorus of angels singing nearby. You can’t seem to find it, though - there are just the two doors, one yellow and one purple, sitting abnormally firm in the deep red rocks of Alternia’s inner structure. 

You take about half a step forward, intending to push your way into Prospit, only for someone to pop into existence on the throne in front of you with a near-deafening crack, like a bolt of lightning. The momentum of your half step quickly reverses into an ungraceful stumble backwards, and you find yourself face to face with… some guy? 

He’s wearing an open shirt and loose pants, shoeless feet draped over the arm of the throne and lanky body perched against the stone like it’s the most comfortable thing in the world. He’s got some ridiculous multi-colored glasses on, and the hand he’s resting his chin on gives way to an increasingly blasé attitude that does nothing but irritate you. Despite having the body language of a bored child, he has all the physical features of most deities - grey skin, golden horns, a little bit of a glow emanating from within him that you only notice in your peripheral vision. 

“Congratulations,” he drawls with a lazy wave of his hand. His voice pitches up like he’s reading off a prewritten speech. “You’re dead. If you were not aware already, this is the afterlife and your soul will be weighed by a god - me - and then you will be sorted into either-”

“I’m not here for that,” you interrupt. 

This gets him to sit up a little straighter, feet coming down to touch the floor. “You’re not dead,” he says, as if just realizing. 

“Great observation.” You approach him, adjust the sword strapped to your back. “Where’s the God of Alternia? I need to talk to him.” 

“You’re looking at him,” the guy says. “Though I go by Sollux these days.” 

You squint at the skinny, smug kid in front of you and try to conflate his image with the descriptions you remember hearing about the God of Alternia; he’s supposed to be tall, intimidating, crackling with energy and wearing the world’s most uncomfortable outfit. This certainly doesn’t seem right.

“Where’s the  _ real  _ God of Alternia?” you correct. 

“He’s dead,” Sollux explains, quickly followed by a grin and, “So you humans are still calling it Alternia, huh?” 

“What the hell else are we supposed to call it?” 

“Maybe its given name?” he suggests. “Something a little less lazy than  _ Alternia _ ?” 

You quirk an eyebrow at this and Sollux inhales a deep breath in preparation for what you can only assume is a typically long-winded godly epithet. 

“It’s the Supplementary Subterranean And Abyssal Corpse Capital,” he says. “Simple, to-the-point, explanatory-”

“Sack,” you interrupt. 

“What?” 

“The acronym,  _ SSAACC. _ ” You wave your hand around with a sneer. “You guys literally named the Underworld ‘sack’ and you’re shitting on humans for coming up with Alternia?” 

Sollux pauses for a beat before asking, “What do you want?”

“I need to get my sister back,” you say. “She’s in Prospit, or I think - I  _ hope  _ she is - I just need to bring her back, I-”

“Look, kid, I just weigh the souls,” he explains. “If you’re trying to bring someone back to life you’re gonna have to talk to Death.” 

“Are you kidding me?” you gripe, an angry hand coming back to grip at the hilt of your sword. “I came all the way here from the Northern border and you’re gonna make me jump through hoops to see my fucking sister?” 

A gray, placating hand goes up to silence you and you start to feel the sting of electricity in the air, the legendary powers of the Psiionic prickling up your spine as Sollux’s attitude takes a sharp turn into less personable territory. 

“I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them,” he says, tone deeper than before. “I let them in, but they don’t come out without Death’s permission. There’s a process.” 

You take in a long breath, hold it in your lungs for a while as you ruminate on whether attacking a god would send you directly to Derse at the end of your life. For three of the seven seconds that you’re holding your breath it seems extremely tempting, but you’ve let go of the thought by the time you exhale. Your hand releases the hilt of your sword. 

“Fine,” you spit. “What do I have to-”

“Where did you say you were from again?” Said with a grin, a coy finger on his jawline, a pull of something behind your naval. 

“The Northern border?” It was a long journey down to the southern coast to get to Alternia; full of turmoil and near-death experiences, and trying not to go mad from being alone for so many months.

“Ah.” The grin splits into a leering smile, and then the tug in your stomach gets stronger. “Karkat’s gonna  _ love  _ this.” 

You open your mouth to ask him what he’s talking about, why he seems so delighted to hear where you’re from, when you’re suddenly yanked backwards by whatever force had been curling around in your gut. You almost fall, but whatever is controlling you keeps you upright as you’re pulled deeper into Alternia to a nearby, poorly lit hallway. As you disappear into the darkness, you see Sollux, eyes glowing behind his glasses, give you a satisfied wave goodbye. 

You only realize you can’t breathe when you arrive at your destination a moment later. You fall to your knees with a gasp and have to take a few seconds to get your bearings, a little unraveled at having your body thrown around like a ragdoll by a petulant, telekinetic child. When you finally manage to ground yourself and take note of your surroundings, you surprisingly find yourself in the middle of what looks like an office. 

It’s a mess, with paperwork strewn over a dozen or so desks, cabinets overflowing with documents. A pen has started to leak black ink, unusually thick and oozing down the side of someone’s desk, ruining several papers. You see an overturned chair in one corner and an extremely dead fern in another. It would be funny, if not for how confusing and terrifying it is. 

There’s no one around. You were dropped unceremoniously into an empty office room which is, presumably, the domain of the God of Death, and no one can even be bothered to show up and scoop you off the floor. 

You remain on the floor for what might be a bit too long, your confusion and exhaustion mixing into a complete lack of mental faculties for a few minutes. It’s long enough that you start to hear someone approach, and you’ve only just managed to stand when you see a young woman, with curled horns and curlier hair, arrive in the room. 

“Oh, hi!” she says happily, smile a little manic. “Can I help you with something?” 

“Uh, yeah.” You shy away from her extremely cheery demeanor and readjust your sword, which had gone askew in your fall. “I’m trying to find Death?” 

She laughs, “Aren’t we all?” and then smacks you on the shoulder on her way past you. She disappears down a separate corridor and you hear another voice start to chastise her, sharp and scratchy. 

“Aradia, for fuck’s sake,” the voice echoes from the hallway, fast approaching. “You can’t just fuck with humans like that, you know they’re fragile.”

The voice appears to come from the body of a young man as he exits the hallway and into the clusterfuck of an office space. He’s a little more well-dressed than Sollux, back a little straighter, hair somehow messier, though with the same gray skin and golden horns as everyone else down here. He’s got a sweater on despite it being somewhere around fourteen million degrees however far underground you are, which contrasts deeply with the ring in his eyebrow, the hoop in his nose, and the several other piercings in his pointed ears. He pauses when he sees you and regards you with the same expression you might have upon discovering a cockroach rifling through the food in your kitchen. 

Something about him is painfully familiar. 

“What do you want?” he asks. 

You snap out of whatever mental fog had gathered around your brain and state, clearly, “I’m trying to talk to my sister.” 

He sighs and starts attempting to straighten up a nearby pile of papers. “If you want to speak to a departed loved one you have to summon their spirit from the overworld in the traditional-”

“No,” you interrupt. “I want to get her out of here.” 

His eyes narrow. “You want to revive her?” 

When you answer in the affirmative the guy, who you can only assume is Karkat, tips his head back and lets out a dramatic groan. It’s followed by an annoyed, “Why the fuck did Sollux send you to  _ me _ ?” 

“You’re not the God of Death?” you ask, figuring that if some kid could be the new God of Alternia, then Death would be no different. 

This brings Karkat some pause, like you hit a nerve. “I’m Death’s  _ apprentice _ ,” he explains through gritted teeth. “She’s busy on the West coast with a plague, we’ve been overworked for  _ weeks _ -”

“She?” you repeat. That’s not right. “I thought Death-”

“That doesn’t matter,” Karkat insists frantically. “I can’t help you, okay? This isn’t in my paygrade and I’m not even being paid.” 

He starts to turn away like he’s done with you but you dart around to intercept him. “You can’t even just… open the door?” you ask desperately. “Just let me in so I can-”

“ _ Let you in? _ ” he repeats incredulously. “Do you know what kind of monumental shitstorm Death would unleash if she found out I was letting random mortals with swords walk into the fucking Corpse Capital like they own the damn place? If you wanna go in so bad then go ahead and try, she’ll kill you as soon as she finds out and then you can stay for real! Is that what you want? Do you have some kind of fucking death wish? Because I can ask her for a favor if you’re so fucking desperate to get inside the doors!” 

“So, what, you’re Death’s apprentice and that just means fuck all? You have absolutely no fucking authority to help me so I’m just shit out of luck?” you shout back. “What does that make you then? The God of Naps? The God of Orgasms? Every time someone has a wet dream do you show up with a damp towel and a fresh change of sheets like the sad excuse for a deity you are? Are you so low on the divine totem pole that you have to take it out on mortals who just want to find their families? Is that it?” 

You watch in fuming silence as Karkat’s jaw clenches around the litany of things he probably wants to say to you, though you see him check his temper after a moment or two. 

“This is not my jurisdiction,” he says slowly, with a hand raised to calm you. “If you want to bring someone back from the dead, it’s kind of fucking necessary to get Death’s permission first. I can send the paperwork but it might take weeks to even get a response.” 

“Do it,” you tell him, barely allowing a breath to pass between you. He gives you a look and you add, desperately, “Please.” 

Karkat considers you for a second before letting out a resigned sigh and approaching one of the overflowing cabinets. It takes him a bit to find the paper he needs, and then even longer to find a pen, during which he accidentally dunks his hand into the puddle of ink collecting on one of the desks. He curses several different gods before wiping his hand on a random piece of paper and producing a different pen from elsewhere in the room. The chair he plops into creaks loudly and he smacks the paper onto a desk with a dramatic flair, pen poised over a small inkwell. 

“What’s your name?” he asks flatly. 

“Dave,” you say, watching him scribble the corresponding letters onto the document. When he looks at you with a raised eyebrow you add, “Uh, Strider.” 

“Fantastic,” he grumbles. “Date of birth?” 

You give it to him, and several other morsels of personal information until he’s satisfied, all while standing awkwardly a little too far from him and having to raise your voice slightly for him to hear you. Your heart starts pounding out of control somewhere between your current address (Copper District, Northernmost Province) and the name of your closest living relative (Not Applicable), in anticipation of being so close to Rose after almost a year of trying to track down the entrance to Alternia, after countless setbacks and trials, after years of blaming yourself you can finally-

“Name of the deceased?” Karkat asks. 

You blink at him. “What?” 

“Name of the deceased,” he repeats, slower. “The person you’re trying to see?” 

“Rose,” you clear your throat, “Rose Lalonde.” 

Karkat acts as your scribe as you give him similar details about Rose, some of her information easier to recall than your own. Your pulse has hardly slowed by the time he reaches the end of the form, and then he flips it over. 

“Reason for seeking revival of the deceased?” 

The staccato your heart had been attempting to drum ceases with a cold chill down your back. Karkat looks at you blankly while you try to swallow around whatever is clogging your throat, try to formulate a word through the breath catching in your chest. When you don’t answer, he rolls his eyes and waves a hand around. 

“You know, like…” He looks up, trying to pull examples from memory. “Did she have any kids? Was she… exceptional in some way?” 

“I-”

“Was she unfairly murdered?” 

You clench your jaw at this, accidentally biting your tongue and feeling pain well up in your mouth. You let a muffled groan escape you and Karkat gives you an odd look at the discomfort twisting your expression, eyes dropping back down to the form on his desk. 

“I… have to put a reason,” he says, a little apologetic. “Or it won’t get approved.” 

“We…” You manage to push down the bile in your throat after a few more attempts. “We had unfinished business.” 

Karkat meets your eyes for just a second before muttering, “Right,” and scrawling your answer onto the sheet of paper. He looks over it a couple times before standing with a sigh and rolling the paper up, only to then deposit it into the middle of what looks like an old brick oven that was hidden behind a chair piled high with boxes of paper. He places the form inside and the worn stone lights seemingly without a spark, leaving behind little more than a small bit of ash when it dissipates a moment later. 

“I can’t guarantee this will work,” he says. “The West Coast is a fucking nightmare, and I have no idea when she’ll have the time to even go through requests when she’s so busy with-”

He’s interrupted by the sound of the stone igniting again, depositing a new, entirely unblemished piece of paper in place of the previous one. Surprise prevents him from reading it immediately, until you clear your throat and he moves to retrieve the message. You wait with baited breath as he reads over the letter, noting the incredulous expression that unfurls over his face in the meantime. The letter ends up cast to the side after just a moment, drifting onto the corner of his desk and giving you a glimpse of a short paragraph, signed with a sparkly, pink pair of lips. The handwriting is just large enough that you can catch what’s written on it from where you’re standing, and the content of the letter makes your stomach drop out from under you. 

_**“I’m busy, y’all take care of it. Do the usual shit and don’t bother me about it again, I have bigger fish to fry.”**_

“Well,” Karkat says in a strained voice. “Guess we’re going on a road trip.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whats poppin everyone, heres the first chapter of Several of this au! should be posting semi-regularly because i have a decent amount of it written already but im sure thatll stop at some point because life is a nightmare
> 
> let me know what yall think so far!! happy 6/12!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long chapter is long youre welcome

“Are you _fucking_ kidding me?” 

Your voice bounces around the stone corridor in a shaky echo, the frustration in your tone diminishing with each repetition. Karkat powers up the stairs ahead of you, not stopping even when you take a second to stand, dumbfounded, at the absolutely ludicrous piece of information he just decided to share with you. 

“What the hell do you _mean_ I have to go back home?” you ask. “I just fucking got here, it took me _months_ to find the entrance, I almost died like four times-”

“Look, that’s just how it works, okay?” Karkat exclaims, hands coming up in an exasperated gesture as he continues forward. “I wasn’t here at the conception of the fucking universe when all the major gods got together to decide how many different ways they could fuck over the mortals they created. To use your expert observation, I’m _low on the totem pole_ , which means I’m just as much of a slave to the divine bureaucracy as anyone else and my ass will be just as flagellated if we don’t follow the goddamn rules.” 

“No, dude, this is such total horse shit,” you argue. You finally move from the step you had paused on, jogging a bit to catch up with him. “I didn’t come all the way here just to deal with this wackass nonsense.” 

Karkat stops suddenly and reels around on you, except that you’re a lot closer to him than you were a second ago and he almost elbows you in the face. He braces a hand on one wall of the narrow passageway, backpack straps slipping off one of his shoulders, and he gives you a wild-eyed look. 

“The gods don’t just bring anyone back to life,” he explains sharply, voice suddenly a lot quieter like he’s holding back from yelling at you. “We have to go to her place of death and gather evidence that suggests she’s even worth the effort of bringing back. I can summon her soul from there and then all of the gods - _all of them_ \- will decide whether she’s worth the trouble. That’s how it works.” 

“That’s bullshit.” 

“I never said it wasn’t,” he agrees. “It’s like… filing your taxes or purchasing land; it’s meant to be needlessly complicated and overly convoluted in the hopes that you’ll either massively fuck it up or quit sometime during the process. It’s not fun for the gods to bring someone back to life, so they make sure it happens as little as possible.” 

“Why?” 

“Because if they have to bring someone back,” Karkat explains, “it means one of them fucked up in the first place.” 

He turns to start climbing again, and you follow after heaving a deep sigh and awkwardly moving your sword so it stops scraping against the side of the narrow corridor. You clear a few more steps in thin silence, only the sound of your footsteps sweeping against worn stone, until you hear Karkat take a breath in front of you. 

“I can’t guarantee that this will even work,” he says quietly. “The gods are picky, fickle; if she doesn’t have something that will benefit them then they might not even bother showing up.” 

“What other choice do I have?” you ask. “I have to try _something_.” 

He hesitates on the stairs in front of you, but moves on quickly. “Fine,” he says. “Just… don’t get your hopes up. I’ve only seen a successful revival twice in my life.” 

“And how old are you?” 

Karkat stops again and lets you walk up to the same level as him, the both of you just barely fitting in the tunnel side by side, shoulders brushing together. He lets a beat of silence pass before turning to look at you. 

“I’m six hundred and twelve,” he says, and then continues on without waiting for your response. 

You whistle behind him, partly out of surprise and partly to cover up the way your heart just fell out of your body. He grunts in response and waves you forward. 

“Makes your twenty-six years seem a little more manageable, huh?” he retorts, referring to the date of birth you gave him earlier. 

“Guess so,” you agree, though it’s a blatant lie. The last five years alone are enough to feel like several hundred, nevermind the twenty-one before that, and being alive for six entire centuries sounds like an unbearable nightmare. 

Your ascent continues in relative silence, save for your sword starting to drag against the stone walls again and Karkat occasionally adjusting his bag. He leads the way while you follow close behind, and after a few minutes you can see a pinprick of light what seems like miles ahead. 

“We’re almost there,” Karkat insists, but the corridor stretches out in front of you like an endless trek upwards, like you’re going to walk for days and end up at the sun. 

You emerge from the dark, musty interior of Alternia and into the Overworld a few minutes later, green grass sprouting in front of an unassuming stone archway etched into the side of a small hill. Karkat doesn’t take more than a second to adjust to the bright sun or significantly less humid temperatures outside of Alternia, but you stop to take a breath and inhale the sharp, fresh air of the extremely alive outside world. He doesn’t seem to notice or care, and you move to follow him after a moment until you take a closer look at the archway behind you. 

“This isn’t where I came in,” you say. 

“Yeah, that’s how it works.” Karkat is nearby under the shade of a tree, observing a map he pulled from his bag. 

The grass crunches under your feet as you jog over to join him, the ground dry in the heat of the early summer. “What do you mean?” you ask. 

He regards you with a raised eyebrow before adjusting the map with a flick of his wrist. “The entrance moves every time someone finds it,” he says. When you look at him blankly he adds in explanation, “It was a safeguard put in a long time ago, to avoid having a bunch of humans piling into the Corpse Capital like feral animals, demanding to see their loved ones as if the people running the place have any say in who stays or goes.” 

You meet his eyes for a moment and then say, “Well so much for that.” 

Karkat just rolls his eyes and tips the map in your direction. “Show me where we’re going.” 

You point at the top right of the map, to the northernmost portion of the country. The town you grew up in - the town Rose died in - is little more than a speckling of brown dots over the grayish green topography of the map, some six hundred miles from your current location. Karkat sneers at it with a little grunt before producing a pencil from his bag and starting to draw out a route. 

“It’ll be easiest to go straight north,” he says confidently. “If we wander too far west we’ll get caught up in the clusterfuck that the Condesce is dealing with, and the eastern shore is half underwater from all the flooding.” 

“North’s probably best, yeah,” you agree. You take the pencil from him, earning an indignant noise and a swat in your direction, and start to map out a similar route to the one you remember taking on your way south. You had your own map for a while, but it got soiled several times over on your journey and was eventually unreadable by the time you made it about three quarters of the way to Alternia. It would have been a lot easier to make it to the entrance if you hadn’t gotten hopelessly lost somewhere around mile four hundred and fifty, but maybe you can avoid the same issue on the way back. 

The map indicates several major obstacles in your way - a mountain range, a river, an enormous forest, not to mention the apparent flooding in the east and the plague to the west. The route you’d taken on your way down is no longer viable with how the coasts have devolved into near chaos, and your only remaining option is to push your way through some of the most challenging and dangerous terrain the country has to offer to make it back to the Copper District. It’s not ideal, but you’d go to hell and back if it meant seeing your sister again. Which, you guess, you kind of are. 

“Any objections?” you say when you’ve finished. The finished route is mostly a direct line to the north, with a few minor turns to avoid the worst of the geography. 

Karkat looks over your markings with a focused frown, but you’re not sure he actually knows what he’s looking at. 

“Either this country has changed significantly since I was up here two hundred years ago,” he starts, “or you’ve drawn our route straight through an enormous forest and also over the biggest river this side of the continent.” 

“You said straight north,” you argue. “If we try to avoid either of them we’ll end up so far east we might as well take a boat to get back home, and I dunno about you but I get pretty fucking seasick, Karkat.” 

“Is this the way you came?” he asks with a finger on the map. 

“Yeah, mostly.” 

“And how long did it take you?” 

It takes you a second to calculate the approximate length of your trip, but what you end up with is, “Like six months?” 

You can physically feel Karkat’s reaction to this, the way his shoulders tense and his hands clench around the map, crinkling the outer edges. You think he might be holding his breath too, but you don’t know if he even needs to breathe to begin with, so you just wait until he’s deemed you worthy of his voice again. 

“I guess we should stop and get some supplies, then,” is what he eventually supplies, through gritted teeth and a strained smile. 

You watch him spend an embarrassing amount of time trying to properly fold the map back up to put it away, struggling with the creased paper. “You can’t teleport us or something?” you ask.

“The only place I can _teleport_ to is the one we just left,” he says, pulling his backpack on with the map now firmly inside. “There’s a small town about a mile from here; we can get some food, stock up on nonperishables. You’ve got money?” 

“Yeah-”

“Good.” 

He starts off with a determined look on his face, though you can see him deflate just a few steps into the walk. You adjust the satchel at your hip, not nearly as big as the backpack Karkat’s lugging around, and start off behind him. You’ve barely moved before you hear a concerning rumble behind you, only to find that the archway you just came out of has disappeared entirely, like it was never there to begin with. Something about the finality of it all - the smooth, blank wall of the hillside and the ever-changing facade to the Underworld - makes your stomach roll uncomfortably. You don’t let yourself dwell on it for too long though, and pull yourself away from the cold stone in favor of catching up with Karkat. 

His pace is brisk but you’re able to keep up, and the two of you crunch through the dry grass and undergrowth in relative ease. Karkat still seems headstrong despite the grimace pulling at his mouth and the way his hands clench onto his backpack straps, but he doesn’t mention any reservations he might have about the upcoming journey. 

“So,” you say after a while, physically unable to stay quiet for more than ten minutes. “We gettin’ close to that town?” 

“Yeah,” he says, and nothing else. 

You glance at him, shift under the straps of the sword at your back. “Think people are gonna freak out?” you ask. “Seeing a god in town and all?” 

“Probably not.” He straightens up a little. “I haven’t been up here in a while, but from what I hear people don’t react to deities like they used to.” 

“No?” 

He shrugs. “Too many interactions in the last couple centuries,” he explains. “People have gotten used to us.” 

You grin. “ _Interactions_ , huh?” 

“Of course.” He turns to give you a grin of his own, a little more subtle than yours. “Where do you think a quarter of the population came from?” 

“You’re shitting me,” you hiss in surprise. “You’re telling me every fourth person I’ve ever met is divinity?” 

“Yeah, but I doubt they’re all _children_ of gods,” he says with a hand out. “Grandchildren, great-grandchildren… not all of it culminates in - in _power_ or whatever, but the lineage is there.” 

“I’ll be damned.” You nudge Karkat with an elbow as the beginnings of a dirt road start to form at your feet, leading upwards to a small, distant town on a hill. “What do you think are the chances that I’ve got some divine blood?” 

Karkat stops to consider you, eyes sweeping from your head to your feet and back again in judgemental contemplation. He pauses somewhere around the junction between your neck and shoulders and gives you a polite smile before he says, confidently, “Probably fuck all.” 

You guess you weren’t expecting much else from him but you still pull a face at the rejection. Karkat doesn’t see it, instead pushing forward up the hill where the sounds of the small village are starting to drift your way. You follow him up the dirt path, trying not to let weariness tug at your insides at the prospect of starting your voyage once more, after getting so close to the end, to seeing Rose. 

It’s been a long time since you were around this many people. The greater portion of your long, long, extremely long expedition to find Alternia was spent alone, as the majority of the country’s population lives along the coastlines. You found out why the hard way - the mainland is chock full of dangerous shit, including but not limited to feral animals that want to eat you, weather that tries to kill you, and impossible to traverse geography. You like to think you’ll know your way around a little better this time, but you’re not sure the odds are in your favor any more now than they were to begin with. Which is to say hardly at all. 

The town is oddly lively for being so close to the home of the dead, with people milling about in the streets between brightly painted houses, browsing the wares of the various sellers set up in the main square. Most of the people around are bearing the same colors as the architecture, but in the form of the shapeless and occasionally sparse drapes that are common so far south. You and Karkat stick out with how much skin you both have covered, though he doesn’t seem to give much of a shit about the scenery and makes a beeline for the plaza instead, where he finds someone selling bread and dried meats. You trail behind him, a little more overwhelmed with the sights and sounds of civilization around you, until you get a whiff of all the fresh food in the marketplace and redirect your focus. 

Karkat is perusing the bread options, gently pushing loaves around to try and find the best one of the bunch. You just stand next to him, taking in all of the options in front of you with a watering mouth. 

“How much for the rosemary loaf?” Karkat calls aloud to the seller, whose back is to him as he adjusts other produce. 

“Three gold for the rosemary,” the seller calls back. Then he turns, sees Karkat, and amends, “Six, actually.” 

Karkat’s hands turn up in confusion. “What the fuck?” 

“Hey, I know you all are loaded,” the guy says with a finger wag in Karkat’s direction. “With how everyone’s always sending you money and shit. You can pay a little extra for some damn bread.” 

“Son of a bitch,” Karkat sighs, rifling around in his bag to produce a smaller bag that jingles with coins. “You wanna up it to three thousand or will six suffice?” 

“I can do eight.” 

“Let’s keep it at six,” Karkat says with a sneer. He hands over the coins to the slight dismay of the seller, who plucks the loaf off the table and leaves to wrap it for you. 

With a sigh, Karkat presses the pouch of coins into your hands. “You handle the money from now on,” he instructs. “I’m not in the mood to deal with mortals busting my ass over how much spare change I can throw at them.” 

You unclasp the pouch and feel your eyebrows raise over the quantity of coins inside. “Thought you weren’t getting paid?” 

“I’m not.” 

“Huh.” You grab a robust handful of coins and stuff them into your satchel; you have your own money, but not nearly enough to get all the shit you need. You hand the pouch back to Karkat and say, “So do all the godly kids get an allowance or something?” 

“More like inheritance,” he says, something in the timbre of his voice like maybe he doesn’t want to talk about it. The seller comes back with your wrapped bread and Karkat hands it off to you with little fanfare. “Go find a bag for all this, I’m not carrying it.” 

“Alright-”

“I’m gonna look for other supplies,” he says, already making his exit. “Meet me back here in a few minutes.” He’s disappeared into the crowd before you have a chance to answer in the affirmative, and then you’re standing by yourself at the bread stand. 

You start to feel a little bit like a lost child alone in the middle of a busy market, but you don’t let it distract you for too long. The smells of the town plaza are tempting, and you drift along stall by stall to see what catches your eye. You start to shop to your heart’s content but realize soon after purchasing your third jar of candied peaches that Karkat’s right and you definitely need a bag to carry all this shit. It ends up costing you quite a few gold pieces, but you hardly feel bad about spending Karkat’s money when he seems to have such a metric shitton of it. You used to have your own bag, a pretty good one at that, but it got right and truly torn to hell after you fell down a deceptively steep mountainside, along with your bedroll and most of your clothes. You nearly cracked your skull open in the process too, and the memory alone makes you shiver. 

You have a pretty good haul after about twenty minutes of shopping; you snagged a good amount of food that should last you for a while, along with a couple more canteens to fill, a new bedroll, a tarp, and a better knife than you’ve had in a while. The bag you purchased is starting to sit heavily on your shoulders, and you have to adjust the straps of your sword holster to stop random pointy shit from jabbing into your muscles. You decide to call it there, and start making your way back through the growing throng of people to find your companion. 

Karkat is staring miserably at a compass in his hand when you find him a few stalls down, near where you entered. You’re about to ask him what the hell the compass did to make him so upset when you see the way the needle is spinning around chaotically inside the metal device, never pointing due north despite Karkat standing perfectly still. 

“What’s up with that?” you ask. 

He barely reacts to your voice even though he didn’t bother acknowledging you when you walked over. “It just happens around me,” he says. 

“Are all gods endowed with a divine magnetic field or is that just you?” 

“Just the ones underground,” he explains in a resigned tone. He sets the compass back onto the table with the rest of them and you notice all of the other needles moving in odd, disjointed rhythms, trying to find a north that keeps shifting. 

“Another way to keep the pesky humans out?” 

“Oh good, you learn fast,” he quips. He gestures at your bag, swollen with recently purchased items. “Guess you nice a good shopping trip?” 

“Yeah.” You adjust the bag again and try to ignore the jingling of the coins in your satchel. “Thanks for the extra cash by the way, I’ve been kinda low on-”

“Don’t mention it,” he says with a hand up. “This might be confusing for a guy who comes from the civilization that invented currency but there’s not really a whole lot to buy in Alternia.” 

“Why do you have so much fucking money then?” 

“Because people send it to us?” he says as though it’s obvious. “Offerings, prayers… where do you think all that money goes? To the great beyond? Lost to the void?” 

You shrug and feel yourself start to grin. “I was never that religious.” 

This makes Karkat roll his eyes, and he keeps them pointed to the sky for a moment like he wants a personal audience with the Skaian gods to bitch at them for bestowing such an unbearable burden on him. When his gaze comes back to you it’s with a scowl. 

“Are you done talking?” he asks. “Or should we delay our trip even longer so you can get a few more poorly executed jokes out?” 

You hum and place a finger on your chin in mock contemplation. “Think I’m good,” you eventually conclude. 

“Great.” 

Karkat turns on his heel back down the dirt road, and you let him go a dozen or so steps before following. Something in you doesn’t want to go just yet, a childish remnant of your psyche wanting to stall for as long as possible before having to be on the road again, with no guarantee that your efforts will even culminate in something worthwhile. It makes your chest hurt just thinking about the journey ahead of you, and you feel your bones start to ache as memories surface of your months-long expedition, and the years of cutting loneliness prior to it. 

“Quit dragging ass!” Karkat calls back to you when he sees you lagging behind, effectively snapping you out of your hesitation. “Or I’ll leave without you!” 

You pick up the pace to meet him down the road where he’s pulled out the map to refer to again. You watch with a dry mouth as he reorients himself with the path of the sun to head due north, and you barely react when he hands you the map to fold up this time. A few seconds pass in which you stand awkwardly with the paper crinkling in your grip and Karkat puts his hands on his hips to consider the long, open path in front of you both. Eventually he turns to you, wide red and yellow eyes trying to break through the fog in front of your own, and he lets out a long sigh. 

“Are you done dicking around?” he asks. “Ready to get going?” 

You spend an inappropriately long time making sure the map is folded just right, taking extra care not to add any more unnecessary creases. The midday sun beats down over you both and you start to feel sweat trickle down the back of your neck, some combination of nerves and sensitivity to the heat, fear and overexertion. You can feel Karkat’s eyes on your hands as he watches your movements with an odd expression, something like a frown but without any bite behind it, and he doesn’t say anything as you slowly, slowly fold up the map. The sounds of the town on the hill are already a distant memory, and the unnerving silence of the space around you starts to press into your ears like thunder, stilling your breath in the grips of anxiety. You feel your throat close like maybe you might cry, except that it feels more like you’re about to suffocate instead. You can’t breathe, or maybe you’re holding your breath, and the sound of your heart beat is starting to drive you crazy, you want to scream, you want to -

The map is folded. You look up to hand it back to Karkat and the world comes back to you all at once, the sounds of leaves rustling and birds chirping replacing the buzzing in your eardrums, the sun suddenly becoming overwhelming bright in your eyes. You blink a few times and straighten your shoulders, then take a deep breath of the air around you in a last attempt to calm the sour trepidation swirling in your stomach. 

“I’m ready,” you tell Karkat, though he just nods, and starts walking. The way ahead is far and intimidating, and you take a step forward. 

You have a feeling it’s going to be a long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dave strider and karkat vantas stuck together for months in the middle of nowhere what will they accomplish 
> 
> anyways thanks everyone for reading/commenting on the last chapter!! i really appreciate it and yall are all sweet as hell 
> 
> see u next week ✌🏽


	3. Chapter 3

The first few days of your journey are… arduous, to say the least. It becomes apparent pretty immediately that Karkat hasn’t been around a human in a long time, with the way he seems to forget that you aren’t equipped to walk for hours on end with no breaks, and that sleep is often required for you to recover from a long day’s trek. You notice his tendency to forge ahead even when you start to lag behind, and while you may have more stamina than the average person you start to falter after a near agonizing six hour walk on the first day. Eventually you have to ask him to slow down so you can rest for a bit, though it hurts your pride just a little. He looks at you with a raised eyebrow at first like he doesn’t understand what you’re complaining about, until you watch the way he takes in your appearance with a frown. 

You find a comfortable rock to sit on and take a load off, producing one of your canteens and a bit of bread to refuel in the interim. Karkat doesn’t sit next to you but instead stands a short distance away, watching you, as if observing a wild animal for the first time. The bread is probably the best you’ve tasted in years, or you’re just really hungry, and the water is a much needed replacement for all the sweating you’ve been doing. You know you look a mess, hair sticking to your forehead and cheeks painted with splotchy red patches underneath your dark skin, but Karkat looks… the same. 

There’s not a drop of sweat on his brow, or anywhere else that you can see. No pink in his skin or catch in his breath to indicate that he’s doing any sort of physical work at all, and you can’t even find a hair out of place on his head, not anymore than when you first met. The weird way his gray skin seems to softly glow is also becoming more apparent as the sky darkens with the oncoming night, though you can only seem to catch it out of the corner of your eye. The deep orange of the sunset behind him begins to illuminate his figure in a comically godlike silhouette, celestial gold against hellish shadows, someone’s artistic interpretation of what a god should look like. 

There’s a moment when you just stare at each other, two people from two different places coming to the same realization that you’re going to be spending the next several months with a complete stranger, a different species, in extremely close quarters. His divine cleanliness and godly attitude contrast oddly against the imperfections of your human form, the way beads of sweat have started to drip into your eyes, the way your voice shook when you’d initially asked for a break. He considers you not with malice but with something like curiosity, revealing that maybe the two hundred or so years he spent away from humanity were longer than he thought, that it’ll take time for him to get used to you, like he forgot the basic traits of the humans his lineage had a hand in creating. 

“Do you want to set up camp for the night?” he asks. 

You put your canteen away, swallow your mouthful of bread. “No,” you say, confidently, to show off, to recover your fragile human ego. You can go for a few more hours, it’ll be nothing. 

This is a mistake. You’re dead on your feet sometime after dark, during that liminal time of the night where it’s simultaneously pitch black and far too bright. Karkat forces you to lay down for a while, and you fall into a deep, fitful sleep, until dawn wakes you up hours later, and you continue.

* * *

“So,” Karkat says one morning, after almost four agonizing days of exchanging maybe a dozen or so words with each other. “You’re from the Copper District?” 

You glance at him. “Yeah,” you mutter. Karkat hasn’t asked you much beyond checking in on your physical wellbeing a few times in the last couple days and you have no idea why he’s bringing up your hometown now. 

“How was it?” he asks. 

You let your eyes sweep past his face again, checking on his expression to try and glean what he’s getting at. You don’t find anything beyond him staring straight ahead, determined, and maybe a little nervous. 

“I mean… it was poor,” you say a little awkwardly. You’re not exactly fond of where you grew up. “Dirt fuckin’ poor,” you add. “Not as bad as the Russet District from what I hear, but that’s hardly an accomplishment.” 

Karkat nods at this, and you don’t add anything else. The tension of the last several days has just barely begun to crack around you, a tiny hairline fracture in the facade of the annoying, fiddly little dance you’ve been trotting around each other. You tried the first day to engage him, but he didn’t seem interested and you eventually gave up. The exorbitant amount of energy necessary to even make this trip has drained you of any remaining ability to make an effort as far as befriending your travel companion, and you can’t be assed to do the bulk of the work on your own. You extended your olive branch and received a wretch and a sneer at your offer, so you rescinded it. Except now Karkat seems to have forcefully taken that olive branch from you, and has started to hit you with it. 

“What did you do?” he asks. 

You look at him. 

“For money,” he explains. “A job?” 

“Leatherwork,” you say, with a pang of nostalgia. It’s been a long time since you’ve worked with much of anything. 

Dry leaves crunch underneath you and you’ve come under the cover of the trees, blocking out most light save for the occasional errant ray of sun here and there. You can hear your own breath, slightly elevated from the fairly easy walk, while Karkat is nearly silent beyond the sound of his footsteps. It’s cooled off a bit, but you’re still sweating in the humidity of the air, and your back is starting to hurt from hauling around your rations. 

“What did you make?” Karkat asks. 

You shrug. “Practical stuff,” you say. “Bags, belts, holsters. The occasional cod piece for shits and giggles.”

“Extremely practical,” Karkat snorts, though it’s with a small grin. 

“Something to break up the monotony,” you say. “It got kinda old making the same shit all the time, but it paid for food and everything. Most people couldn’t afford fancy material like wool or silk or anything so I got really fucking good at making leather jackets, you know? Had that shit down to a science, could make a sick jacket using the least amount of material in the shortest amount of time, and charge a two hundred percent markup for it.” 

“Hope you were making something worth the price,” he says with an eyebrow up. “Seems like some kind of robbery to charge people such an excessive amount of money for a bunch of shoddily produced garbage that they’d be better off using to clean up typical household spills than putting on their bodies.” 

“Nah, it was quality,” you say. “I wasn’t charging half as much as most of the other shops around, anyways; seemed kinda fucked up to make people pay that much for the only shit they had available. Copper’s great for pots or whatever but it’s kinda uncomfortable to wear, in case you didn’t know.” 

“Did you make that?” he asks, gesturing to the sword holster on your back that’s just barely hidden by your bag. 

“Yup.” You reach an arm behind you to grip the hilt of your sword and remove it with an easy motion, hardly any sound emanating from the blade sliding against its leather scabbard. You flick your wrist to point the handle in Karkat’s direction and have to give him an encouraging nod when he looks at the sword hesitantly. 

He grips the hilt of it gingerly, as if afraid that he’ll cut himself even from the relatively safe angle, and you feel a flicker of pride in your chest when his eyes widen at your handiwork. 

“You _made_ this?” he asks. 

You feel your face split into a grin, despite yourself. “Yeah,” you mutter. “Took months.” 

The hilt of the sword is made of braided leather, dyed a deep red that was nearly impossible to achieve with the resources you had available. It was just intricate enough to be an enormous pain in your ass, but if you were going to have a sword at all it would be home to your best work, at the very least. The blade itself is less impressive, medium length and not too wide, made of a dark metal that tapers to a rounded point. Your bro made it for you when you were born, but he never told you where he got the strange, deep gray metal from. You can only assume, based on his colorful track record, that he had gotten it through some kind of shady, black market trading circuit for fancy looking metal, but you guess it doesn’t really matter anymore. 

“This is…” Karkat stutters, fingers pressed into the worn leather. 

“Impressive?” you finish for him, holding out a hand. Karkat gives the blade back to you and you resheath it with a practiced motion. “Outstanding? Masterfully crafted? Thanks, I know.” 

Karkat rolls his eyes. “Impressive for a human, I guess,” he concedes. “Took you all long enough to learn how to forge weapons in the first place though. I hear watching the human race struggle for eons to discover fire was as unbearable as it was embarrassing, even more so when it took you longer to learn that sharp things are important for surviving.”

“I didn’t make the blade,” you say offhandedly. It seems important to say out loud, despite Karkat not actually asking. He just raises an eyebrow at you, so you change the subject. “So what do you do? Down in Alternia?” 

He heaves an overly dramatic, godly sigh at your inquiry and doesn’t respond immediately. “Bullshit, mostly,” he says eventually. “You humans have no fucking idea what kind of shitshow is going on underground while you all prance around in the overworld killing each other like you’re getting paid for it. Every fucking day I have to deal with people who are upset about being sorted into Derse or Prospit, and pretty much every other person who dies decides they’re going to have the complete audacity to try and dispute their sorting as if they had done anything even remotely remarkable enough during their hilariously short lives to earn them a place in Skaia. Dealing with humanity’s constant, gargantuan insolence every day would have been enough to kill me if not for my extremely conditional immortality.” 

“Holy shit, dude,” you say, pushing low branches out of your path as you continue through the woods. “You’re telling me you were endowed with the divine task of being Death’s apprentice and got stuck doing the shit work? Y’all couldn’t’ve gotten some demigod to do it?” 

“All of the demigods are too busy frolicking through the Overworld impressing the humans to bother with things like maintaining the order of the fucking Corpse Capital,” he explains with a sneer. “That righteous task falls onto my shoulders.” 

“Just you?” 

“No, there are others,” he says with a grimace. “I’m just the one who’s… mostly in charge. You met Aradia, and there are a dozen or so apprentices on the coast with the Condesce, trying to deal with that mess.” 

“The plague,” you say in understanding. “We’ve heard about it up north but I don’t think it’s actually gotten to us yet.” 

“Yeah, well, you better start praying it doesn’t.” Karkat’s voice takes on a sour tone that you don’t get for a moment, and he gives you an imploring look. “It’s chaos. You don’t want something like that anywhere near your home.” 

“Right…” 

The mood has shifted a bit and you both fall into silence as your thoughts trail away from conversation. It feels strange to have someone reference the Copper District as your home; it never quite felt like home to you, not when your brother was alive, not when Rose came to live with you, nor any of the time in between. Your attachment to the place you were born in has always been more fleeting than anything, and you only stayed out of necessity. You did build a life there, however much you resisted it - Rose, your leatherwork, the house you struggled to maintain but filled with your belongings anyways. You guess if you have any home, it’s there, though it never really felt like it. 

“You don’t look like you’re from the north,” Karkat muses suddenly, like he’d been thinking about it. 

“Never heard that one before,” you say sarcastically. You and Rose stuck out like sore thumbs in the north, bearing the deep brown skin and light hair of more southern provinces. You constantly had to deal with people calling you “exotic,” or equally repulsive epithets, and it got old pretty fast. “Pretty sure we used to have family from the south or something? I never really looked into it.” 

“Huh,” Karkat voices, and doesn’t say anything else on the matter. 

The conversation lulls again when your easy walk becomes more difficult as the terrain starts to incline steeply. It doesn’t bother Karkat much except for when he stumbles on the occasional large rock or branch in your path, but he seems to take notice of your heavy breathing and damp forehead and doesn’t attempt to engage you with any more personal questions for a while. 

The hill evens out into a plateau after another mile or so, revealing a small clearing amongst the dense trees. The sun is starting to set, so Karkat suggests that you stop for the day. You want to keep going - the long journey ahead somehow feels longer than when you started even with the progress you’ve made in the last few days - but your tired body and aching bones force you to concede. You unfurl your bedroll under a nice tree, removing your bag and sword holster, and let out a sigh in anticipation of the night and the cooler, more bearable temperatures that come with it. 

Karkat sits awkwardly against the trunk of a tree near you, a little too far away. He doesn’t sleep, doesn’t need to, and you feel kind of bad making him wait for you to rest before you can keep going. You don’t really have a choice though, not if you want to make it more than a week into your voyage. 

He doesn’t even look tired. The strange eyes, glowing skin, and golden horns you can look past fairly easily, but his complete lack of any physical flaws is occasionally unnerving. Maybe his hair is a little wild, the curve of his mouth slightly crooked, but other than that he is divinely, celestially unblemished. No bags under his eyes or sallow tint to his skin are present to indicate fatigue, and it makes you wonder if he gets tired at all, if gods have to rest at some point, for some reason. What you wouldn’t give to not have to sleep, to force your way through the forest and straight north until you reach the cool air of the border, until you reach your sister. 

“Need something?” Karkat asks with snark in his voice, and just a hint of discomfort. You realize suddenly that you’ve been staring at him, openly, for a while. “A bedtime story? Some warm milk?” 

You don’t let your embarrassment show through in your tone, far too practiced to allow a slip-up. “I mean,” you start with a drawl. “If you’re offering a bedtime story…” 

Karkat sighs and looks at you with pursed, perfect lips. “Once upon a time,” he says, “there was a stupid, idiot human and he stopped talking and went the fuck to sleep.” 

“You call that a story?” you gripe. “You need to work on your craft, dude, that was half-assed to Alternia and back. No rising action, no climax, I mean what kinda story doesn’t have a climax? You know, I always say a climax can make or break a story, and you can’t fake that shit either, it’s gotta be _genuine_ . I’m talking a good, honest to gods, _explosive_ kinda climax, maybe one where everyone gets involved - you don’t want any characters to feel like they missed out on a good climax or else-”

Karkat’s red eyes flash at you in bright annoyance, but with a stormy tinge to them that tells you your bit stopped being funny three sentences ago and he’s long past fucking around. They remind you of torchlight bouncing off the irises of scared animals in the woods at night, of your own eyes, of your brother’s. You stop talking, and turn around to sleep.

* * *

You have an odd dream. It’s almost as if you’re reliving a memory, except that it’s hazy, and warped. The first thing you see is your own body on the ground, beaten, bloody, and about a decade younger, followed almost immediately by the similarly brutalized body of your dead brother. The brother that you recall killing in vivid, disorienting detail. 

You feel out of place, like you’ve stumbled upon a situation you have no part involving yourself in despite it being your own memory. You know that the body of your sixteen year old self is alive, and will soon wake to the gruesome scene around him in confusion and fear and, eventually, relief. You know your brother will not have the same fortune as to arise with a beating heart, and you know he’ll be taken to Derse with little hesitation. This part is simple. 

What you don’t understand, in the deep fog of your dream, is what exactly you’re meant to be doing here. You’re unable to rouse your sleeping younger self and make no similar efforts to awaken your brother, which leaves you standing between the two bloodied, concerningly still bodies with little idea as to why you’ve come to this place, this time. 

The sound of your younger self’s rasping breaths draws a pang to your chest; not of fear or sadness, but from remembering the pain you felt as one of your lungs nearly collapsed all those years ago. You frown and approach your younger body, if only to take full inventory of the injuries you sustained from your brother. The feeling in your gut is something like nausea as a result, but much worse. 

It’s difficult to stare at your own face covered in blood, still so round-cheeked and plump with youth. You bend down to get a closer look, to double check that your former body is breathing even though you _know_ that it is, and will continue to do so for a long time. You feel oddly inclined to reach out, some distant part of your brain insisting that this is what you came here to do, only satiated once you’ve smeared a thumb across a cut on your younger cheekbone and temporarily wiped the blood away. 

Something in your stomach curls and you stand suddenly, your heart pounding. A sound behind you, someone approaching. You turn to look but your vision distorts, a hooded figure coming towards you begins to obscure, and you fall back into the dark pit of sleep. 

When you wake up some hours later, disoriented and fatigued, you find dried blood under the nail of your thumb. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another one for the books lads
> 
> i know the homestuck fandom is virtually dead but i appreciate everyone whos bothered to read/leave a comment/kudos and everything. means a lot!
> 
> see u next week


	4. Chapter 4

The forest is a lot bigger than you remember. What had felt like a five day journey during your initial voyage south takes somewhere around four weeks to traverse on your second attempt. You only have just enough food to get you through the long trek, and it’s almost entirely because of the extra money Karkat lent you in the town you’d passed by. Karkat, however, isn’t very surprised by the length of the trip, and raises an eyebrow at your confusion over the matter with a finger pointed squarely on the map. You shake it off as just fog in your memory from being alone for so long, from the heat or maybe anxiety warping your recollection. You trudge forward and try not to think about it. 

Summer crawls on around you and the air gets warmer, thicker, as you and Karkat traipse through the dense forest and undergrowth. You take to rolling up the legs of your pants and undoing the laces at the top of your shirt for some relief from the heat, though Karkat remains in his sweater and linen trousers. You sweat, and Karkat doesn’t. You sleep, and Karkat takes watch. You ration your food, and learn somewhere along the way to stop offering Karkat any bread, which he doesn’t want or need. 

If there’s any benefit to the unexpectedly long expedition, though, it’s that you don’t have to do it in silence. Karkat is exceptionally good at talking, and can let loose rants that rival your own when you get him on the right topic. You learn quickly that mentioning anything about a typical human tradition will often launch him into a mouthy tirade, in which he debases the customs of your species for hours at a time. You get into the habit of saying things just to set him off, letting his voice cut through the suffocating silence around you when it starts to drive you a little mad. 

Surprisingly, you find that you and Karkat share a lot of similar sentiments as far as human rituals go. He makes it clear that he finds them ridiculous and often times entirely useless, as most gods take preference over certain people regardless of how often they pray. 

“It’s about money,” he says one day as you continue your travels through the woods. “It doesn’t matter if you’re the most dedicated Skaian devotee this side of the world, you could pray fourteen times a day and send every other morsel of food you scrape together up to the heavens but it wouldn’t mean shit if you’re not sending coin along with it.”

“Thought gods didn’t need money,” you recall.

“They don’t!” he exclaims with his hands in the air. “It’s all just about… prestige and - and popularity, and whose head can get so big that it stops being able to fit inside of their ass. It’s complete bullshit.” 

“Can’t say I’m surprised.” The terrain is fairly navigable now, and you walk with ease through overgrown grass and fallen twigs. You pick a leaf off a nearby tree just to have something to do with your hands, and fiddle with it as you speak. “I spent a lot of my childhood prayin’ to deities or whatever and I guess it meant fuck all because the first twenty years of my life still sucked shit.” 

Karkat sighs like he’s frustrated and gives you a deflated, “Yeah.” He doesn’t speak for a moment and you give him the space to think, though you hope he’s not going to try and ask what exactly made life so difficult for you as a kid. Thankfully he doesn’t, and instead he simply tells you, “They’re not all bad.” 

You raise an eyebrow. “Yeah?” 

“Most of the major deities are self-absorbed assholes who couldn’t give less of a fuck about the humans they spent so long creating,” he starts pleasantly, “but the younger ones can be more… forgiving. They don’t know any better yet.” 

“Haven’t learned to play the game,” you say, to which Karkat gives a solemn nod. 

“Some of the older ones have gotten out of that trap, but it took a few millennia from what I hear.” 

Karkat rolls up his sleeves suddenly in an oddly human gesture, not because he’s warm from what you can tell, but because he’s angry. The movement reveals a large set of tattoos down his arms, starting around his wrists and disappearing into the rest of his sleeve. You try not to stare when you see them, but it’s hard not to notice the thick, black ink crawling down his forearms in a repeating fractal pattern, like the veins of a leaf. Your lips part at the sight of the dark lines over his deep gray skin, surprisingly toned muscle shifting just underneath. You find them distracting, and confusing, and very pretty. 

“I seriously don’t know why it’s so hard for some of them to understand that the shit they’re constantly doing is not only unnecessary most of the time but also inordinately cruel,” he’s saying loudly. In the vast space of the forest, his voice carries rather far. “I’m sure it’s hard for their selfish, oversaturated minds to understand, but it _is_ possible to just… be a benevolent god? Obviously we need some assholes to keep things balanced, that’s just how shit works, but some gods that claim to be the good ones have pulled some serious dick moves. If a human did half the shit I’ve seen _Mindfang_ do alone they’d land themselves ass first into Derse, nevermind the rest of them.” 

“Mindfang,” you muse. You pull the leaf apart with your fingers, vein by vein. You peek at Karkat’s tattoos. “She’s the one you pray to for luck, right? When you wanna win competitions and shit?” 

“Unfortunately,” he confirms with a grimace. 

“What, you don’t like her?” you ask with a grin. “Gimme the hot gossip, Karkat, tell me everything you don’t like about this Mindfang lady. Then maybe later we can paint each other’s nails and you can tell me about the boys you like from Alternia. Hey, that Sollux guy seemed like a real dickhole, maybe you could tell me about him, too, give me some blackmail material for next time I end up at the motherfucking doors of Death.” 

“Fuck Sollux,” he says, but it’s with a very specific tone in his voice that you recognize as not entirely malicious. They must be old friends. “As for Mindfang, well…” 

He pauses and you feel your grin crack a hair wider. “ _Oh,_ Karkat, is it that bad? You’ve gotta tell me now, dude, I’m trembling in anticipation here. Don’t leave a guy hanging.” 

He rolls his eyes but the gesture is paired with a light smile. “She just… plays by her own rules,” he says carefully. “Praying to her is almost always a shot in the dark unless you know what you’re doing. She’ll take people who are desperate for help and twist their words into something malicious just so she can fuck with them, watch their miserable little lives unfold below her. She hangs onto asinine shit, like the number of syllables in a specific word, or someone’s inflection when they pray, or exactly how many gold coins they send her; if it’s not perfect the first time she’ll completely fuck you over, no second chances.” 

“Huh, yeah that sounds right,” you mutter. “There was a dude in my town that I heard about a while back, when I was a kid. He was a hustler, you know, tricking people out of their money by pretending he couldn’t play some game, had loaded dice or something. My bro told me this dude was praying to Mindfang and that’s why he was so good at cheating, but one year he got cocky and forgot.” 

“And I’m sure he went on to live a long and fulfilling life,” Karkat finishes sarcastically. 

“Well he lost both his hands in some kinda freak accident,” you say. “And now he can’t pray at all, as far as I know.” 

“What’s he do now?” 

“Dunno,” you say. The leaf is little more than a piece of stem from your anxious ministrations, and you toss the rest of it to the side with a sigh. “Pretty sure he’s dead? Lasted something like eight years without his hands, though.” 

“Yeah, that sounds like Mindfang,” Karkat says with a sigh. “A little on the nose for her, though, I think she’s losing her touch. She might be a shitty god that’s not worth the space she takes up in Skaia, but I at least thought her theatrics were supposed to be a little more… elaborate.” 

“What about the rest of them?” you ask, and Karkat’s answer keeps the two of you occupied for a while as you continue plodding north. 

Karkat has a lot of colorful opinions on each of the Skaian and Alternian gods, as he seems to have with most things. You tune in and out of his rant as he speaks and find yourself more focused on putting one foot in front of the other, or not getting distracted by the black ink curling around Karkat’s arms, or trying not to stare into the flashing intensity of his red eyes. You learn a lot in the span of just a few hours though, more than you ever did in school - official teachings about the gods have always been peppered with ideology and favoritism, always watered down through the rose-tinted admiration of humans looking up to beings more powerful than them. 

Karkat has his own favorites. He spends about thirty minutes praising the Dolorosa alone, and corrects you with avid passion when you ask if that’s the goddess of “Doin’ it.” 

“No, Dave, she is not the goddess of _doing it_ , and I should have you flayed for even suggesting such a banal providence for the goddess who is responsible for creating the means of your disgusting, soggy birth to begin with.” He takes a breath. “The goddess of doing it is The Disciple.” 

You laugh over the mouthful of cured pork you’d been snacking on and Karkat goes on to tell you about the goddess of love, and how despite her unending kindness towards him, he’s yet to have any luck in that department. 

“Maybe you oughtta start praying,” you joke, and Karkat shoves your shoulder in response. His touch is unusually warm, enough that you feel it through the sleeve of your shirt even in the deep humidity of the forest. 

“Speak for yourself,” he retorts. “You’ve got, what, fifty, maybe sixty years left in your measly human life? Better get a move on if you wanna have time to trick someone into falling in love with you. I’ve got the rest of eternity.” 

“Maybe try dating humans,” you suggest. “Lower standards, easily impressed; you could add to the divine population too, oversaturate it even more.” 

“I’d rather have each of my limbs removed and fed to me one by one than ever become so intimately involved with a human, which is saying something considering I’d probably survive the whole ordeal.” He shifts under the straps of his bag, eyes forward. The setting sun is glinting off his irises to create a deep gold, and you can’t help staring anymore. “I prefer spending my time with individuals from _intelligent_ species, but thanks for the suggestion.” 

“The way you’ve been describing your people for the last few hours,” you start, “sounds like they’re not much better than us.” 

“Yeah, maybe,” Karkat sighs. A few moments pass before he adds, almost to convince himself, “But not all of them.” 

The last hour or so of your walk is in comfortable silence, until you eventually stop to set up for the night. You’ve been on the road for long enough that you and Karkat have an understandable system between the two of you - when you stop at the end of the day, you set up your bedroll and he gets the fire going. He has more luck with the flint and steel than you ever do, and when you’d made a comment about divine influence a few days ago he’d just given you a little sneer. 

You unfurl the bedroll you’d picked up at the town all those weeks ago, though it’s lost its new sheen from all the sweat and dirt of trekking through the woods. It’s better than nothing though, and you settle on top of it with a sigh while you watch Karkat effortlessly make a fire out of a small, imperfect pile of kindling. Though you’ve seen him do it several times at this point, you’ll never get used to the way he tends to guide his palm across the top of the open flame after lighting a fire, as if checking that it’s sufficiently hot. The nights have gotten chilly lately, and you know he’s taken notice of how much you’ve started to shiver when the sun goes down. He adds more dry leaves to the pile and checks again, flames licking off his gray skin but leaving no marks behind. When he’s satisfied with the heat of the fire, he looks up to check on you, and you meet his eyes. 

“Thanks,” you say, feeling odd. 

Karkat just shrugs and sits back, poking at the fire with a stick and staring into the orange embers. You shake off the strange feeling that’s draped itself over your shoulders, and look through your pack for something to eat before you turn in for the night. You rifle through the contents of your bag, ever dwindling during your long walk north, and find something tucked away underneath empty glass jars and your unused tarp. 

“Oh fuck!” you call in delight. 

You can feel Karkat’s muscles tense more than you see them when he says, noticeably anxious, “What? What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing’s wrong, dude, everything’s fucking dope actually.” You reach deeper into your pack to grab the thing that had brought you such joy - an unopened jar of dried apple pieces, hidden like a jewel amongst a trash heap in the bottom of your bag. You remember snagging the last of them at the market, the dusted cinnamon sugar over the top calling to you in a sea of dried prunes and banana chips, and now they’re like a solstice gift placed delicately in your hands by the gods themselves. 

“What are they?” Karkat asks with narrowed brows, like he’s suspicious of the sweet treats. 

“Only the best fuckin’ snack this side of the ocean,” you declare. The jar opens with a pleasant pop and you grab a handful of sugary, chewy apple pieces to shove into your mouth with reckless abandon. “Fuck,” you groan through a sticky bite. “I totally forgot I had these. Maybe I’m gonna start being religious after all, because these are a literal fucking godsend.” 

Karkat rolls his eyes, but still looks at the snack curiously. 

You pour a couple into your hand to show him. “It’s just little bits of apple,” you say. “But they’re like dried out and covered in sugar and whatever. Basically dessert after a long day’s walk.” 

He just hums at them and tilts his head forward for a better look. Something about the inquisitive look in his eye makes him look like a child, and you feel the tips of your ears heat up. 

“You wanna try one?” you ask without thinking. 

Karkat frowns, leans away from you. “You know I don’t have to-”

You wave a hand around; you’ve heard this a dozen times already. “Yeah, yeah, but do you _want_ to?” you clarify. “You’re starin’ at ‘em like they hold the secrets to the universe or something, like Calliope herself dropped them down from space specifically for you to indulge in the sticky, sweet bliss of a well made motherfucking apple candy. You can just have one if you want, I paid for them with your money anyways.”

You get silence for a minute, though it’s paired with Karkat’s mouth moving around words he’s yet to articulate fully. When he finds what he wants to say it’s a surprising, “I’ve never had apples before.” 

At your raised eyebrow he explains, “They were still kind of shitty the last time I was up here. Humans weren’t eating them much.” 

“Huh.” You poke at the candies sitting in your palm, getting stickier as they warm up on your skin. “Well now’s as good a time as ever, right? You’ve got the best version of them sittin’ here in front of you - I mean we can probably find some normal apples around here somewhere but they’re way more boring than this, you know, they grow on trees and shit and they’re just kinda mildly sweet and juicy, in the way that most fruits are-”

“I know what an apple is, Dave,” he interrupts with narrowed eyes. 

“Have you ever eaten anything before?” you ask. It sounds accusatory enough that you feel the need to add, “Because I feel like six hundred and whatever years without food would fucking blow.” 

“Six hundred and twelve,” he reminds. “And yes, I’ve eaten before.” 

“And?” 

A pierced eyebrow disappears into his hairline. “And _what_?” 

You use your sticky, apple filled hand to gesture lightly. “How was it?” 

“Weird?” he says with a grimace. “Wet? I don’t fucking know, Dave, how does it feel when _you_ eat?” 

“Uh, how about blissful?” you supply. “Euphoric? Dare I say _heavenly_?” 

Karkat huffs out a sarcastic laugh but you’re hardly kidding. Food was difficult to come by during your adolescence, sometimes even more so in adulthood, so every bite you could get your hands on was one you savored. Especially now with such scarce food, the next town miles away, you feel compelled to let Karkat experience the utter joy of eating something that tastes good. 

“That’s ridiculous-”

“Dude, come on,” you insist. You bring your hand closer to his face only for him to recoil away like you’re waving a venomous snake at him. “Just try it, it’ll change your fucking life.” 

“Fuck, no-”

“Karkat, for real, just take one, they’re starting to get all gooey in my hand-”

“Sweet shitting fuck, Dave, get your hand out of my face,” he says, but you persist. “This is juvenile, even for you!” 

“Says the guy who refuses to try new things because he thinks they’re _weird_.” 

“Oh, for-” He sighs. “If I say yes will you fucking leave me alone about it?” 

You stop immediately and pluck a candy out of your palm to hand to him. “Hell yeah dude.” 

Karkat takes the candy from you much like someone would pick up a beetle they’d found circling the inside of their bathtub, but he takes it nonetheless. You watch with noticeable interest, absolutely thrilled to have convinced him to take part in the deeply pleasurable human custom that is consuming sweet food. It takes him a while to actually put the candy in his mouth, probably weighing the pros and cons all while staring at the sugary treat in his hand like it’s going to attack him. 

“Don’t forget to chew,” you say into his contemplative silence. “Like really savor it, you know? Oh, and swallowing is also important but I dunno how to tell you how to do that really, it’s kinda just an involuntary thing that humans do so we don’t inhale food and suffocate and whatever.” 

“Stop fucking talking,” Karkat instructs, and he sticks his tongue out as if about to swallow a pill, placing the candy square on the center. 

Karkat’s face goes through a series of expressions as he carefully chews the candied apple. It ranges from initial disgust, through four of the five stages of grief, and then eventually… loose satisfaction. You watch in delight as his eyebrows raise after a moment and his posture loosens once the flavor properly hits his tastebuds. He lets out a contented little exhale, tinged with relief, and you grin at him, though he soon catches himself and turns to you with pink-tinged cheeks. 

“See?” you prompt. “What’d I say?” 

“Fine, it tastes good,” he says, and he can hardly hide his small smile. He makes a face as he swallows the candy and smacks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “The sensation is still deeply uncomfortable and disgusting, it got all stuck in my teeth, and I can feel my insides starting to reject it entirely, but it _tastes good_.” 

You stick a finger into the back of your mouth to pull dissolved sugar from your molars. “Yeah,” you say with your tongue half pressed into the indent of one of your teeth. “Honestly the tooth rot is a small price to pay to experience the sheer decadence of an apple candy. Like if I could get a lifetime supply of these I wouldn’t even fucking care if all my teeth fell out of my face in the first week, I’d find a way to consume these sticky little pieces of absolute ecstasy regardless of whatever roadblock comes my way, healthy teeth be damned.” 

The corner of Karkat’s mouth lifts up into a grimace at the mention of tooth rot. “I don’t think they’re worth having your mouth bones fall out,” he mutters. “And it’s completely absurd that they can even do that to begin with. What kind of glitch in the human evolutionary track allowed for such an unnecessary and ludicrous mutation to take place?” 

“What, y’all don’t lose teeth?” you ask. 

Karkat tilts his head at you. “No?” 

“Not even when you’re little?” 

His head pivots in another direction. “ _What_?” 

“Nevermind,” you say quickly. You don’t know if you have the energy to go into details about human anatomy and which bones fall out of you at what times. “But hey, you admit the candies were good, right?” 

Karkat sighs. “Yes, Dave, I think I made myself fairly clear about that-” 

“I’m just saying, maybe you should try more human things,” you say with a shrug. “Like eating’s pretty dope and I’m a big fan of sleeping and everything.” 

Karkat squints at you like the mere suggestion of engaging in further human activities has made him sick to his stomach. “What kind of benefit could I possibly gain from engaging in such unproductive hobbies?” he asks with a sneer. “Why would I bother participating in useless human pastimes that serve virtually no purpose when I could be doing something worth my time instead?” 

“I dunno,” you admit. “Maybe ‘cause they feel nice?” 

This brings Karkat sudden pause, as if he had never considered the idea that eating and sleeping could be for pleasure rather than mechanical necessity. The apple candies you’d shared with him have pretty much no nutritional value, the benefits of the fruit almost entirely negated by how much sugar is required to make them, but you don’t eat them to get your daily serving of vitamins, you eat them because they taste good. And you’d given one to Karkat because things that taste good should be shared between people who like each other, which you might go as far as to say is the oldest human tradition in the book. 

“Well, speaking of human stuff,” you say into the silence that’s started to press between you both. Karkat still seems to be deep in contemplation, but he looks up at you when he hears your voice. “I’m gonna go the fuck to sleep. Feel free to watch and learn, maybe give it a try yourself.” 

“Right, because that’s what I want to be doing during my spare time,” he retorts sarcastically as you settle into your bedroll more sufficiently. 

Karkat falls silent again once you’ve gotten comfortable, and the low crackle of the fire starts to lull you to sleep within a few minutes. You’ve been starting to feel the lasting effects of being on your feet for hours everyday with no bed to go home to at night, and sleep has come fairly easy to you in the last week or so. It takes a little while for your brain to fully shut off, as your anxiety about the coming journey takes its time to crawl to the back of your mind so you can rest. You manage to calm down after a few minutes of willing your nerves to relax, and soon the sweet prickle of sleep is curling around you like a warm blanket. 

Just before you fully succumb to unconsciousness, you start to hear Karkat shift behind you. His shoes scrape against the leaves on the ground even though you can tell he’s trying not to make any noise, and soon you recognize the crunch and snap of twigs breaking as he seems to settle down beside you, lying stiffly on the ground. He’s a bit far from you, careful not to let your bodies touch, but you can still feel him beside you, his body heat nearly as warm as the fire. A small sigh slips out of him - of contentment or apprehension you’re not sure - and when you wake up sometime in the middle of the night you can see him still lying next to you, eyes closed, and smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> karkat vantas after eating an apple candy: hope this doesnt awaken anything in me
> 
> thank u all for reading through a whole ass chapter once more! i appreciate all the comments as usual, yall have been so sweet <3 
> 
> also just as a heads up this is only like semi-beta read so if there are any massive glaring errors then please let a bitch know bc i hate rereading my shit most of the time oops 
> 
> also x2 feel free to follow me on tumblr [acedavestrider!](https://www.acedavestrider.tumblr.com/) i post bullshit there on the regular


	5. Chapter 5

A month. It takes over a month to get through the forest, and every day after the first feels nearly endless, all of them blurring together into a stream of quickly eaten meals and snuffed out fires. You and Karkat spend the majority of the sunlit hours trudging through the forest, while you get a few measly hours of sleep at night just to start again in the morning. You fall into a routine somewhere in the middle of the woods, though, which makes the trip a little more bearable as you sweat your way through what’s probably the largest forest in the country. 

Karkat is a surprisingly amicable travel companion, all things considered. It takes a while to get over the few obstacles in your way - the difference in species, the way Karkat was unwillingly brought into your admittedly ambitious quest, the extremely long journey still left ahead of you - but once you fall into a rhythm together, a push and pull of existence that’s not only sustainable but maybe even enjoyable, you find it rather easy to get along with him. 

He’s kind of an odd dude, and while you initially chalk it up to a matter of divinity you learn pretty quickly that he just has a few specific quirks to get used to. He’s loud, he’s abrasive, maybe occasionally inconsiderate, but all wrapped up in a confusingly charming package that you have trouble not admiring. Mostly you’re just happy to have someone to riff off of while you walk under branches and through spiderwebs, just to break up the shrill silence of being in the middle of nature, miles away from civilization. If you weren’t able to playfully insult him and get a retort back immediately, with just the right amount of bite, you think you’d lose your mind. 

But you make it; you make it through the four harrowing weeks of slogging through the woods, hauling around food rations that become concerningly scarce, functioning on little more than a few hours of sleep and constant, deep-seated anxiety. It’s mostly the thought of Rose that keeps you going, and even just the possibility of getting to see your sister again at the end of your years-long expedition is enough to push you forward, over fallen trees and through thick brush just to get to her. 

Karkat helps, too. He starts complaining slightly less and helping slightly more, suggesting breaks when you start to fall behind and forcing you to sleep on nights when you want to stubbornly press on into the morning. He makes fun of the state of your clothes and the sweat on your brow with a tone of voice that gives away his concern underneath the scathing insults, and you push back at him by recalling all the times he’s gotten hit in the face by a branch or slipped on a leaf during your trek. He smacks you on the shoulder and you wrinkle your nose at him. He makes you stop for the night and you unroll your bedding with little opposition. You offer him a new human food every once in a while and he tries it with less and less resistance. He lies next to you at night, and you pretend like you still haven’t noticed. 

When the forest starts to thin out, you notice almost immediately. The trees become more scattered and sunlight suddenly floods into your eyes as you and Karkat slowly make your way out of the dense thicket of trees you’ve been stuck in for so long. Soon a dirt path comes into view, leading out of the woods and through a small meadow, towards a bustling town in the distance. When the last few trees are out of your way and tall grass starts tickling at your ankles, you feel the need to dramatically throw yourself onto the ground just so you can stare at the sun and inhale air that isn’t weighed down with humidity and the scent of damp soil. You resist the urge, but just barely. 

“My fucking gods,” you yell instead, head thrown back to the sky. “Dude, I’m never looking at another fucking tree for the rest of my life, the next tree I see I’m setting on fire and that’s a promise. I can’t fucking believe that took so long, man, that might not have been the  _ worst  _ four weeks of my life but it’s definitely in the top three somewhere.” 

“I highly doubt that,” Karkat retorts, and he’s right. You can see him take a second to recuperate as well, closing his eyes in a brief moment of convalescence before turning to you again. “At least you had the benefit of your mediocre human sense of smell being unable to pick up the absolutely putrid scent wafting off of your body. Every time a stiff breeze blew by and I got another draught of your pungent body odor I think I felt a year of my life shrivel up into dust. I’m not immortal anymore, Dave, you’ve basically killed me with your unbearable human stink. The gaudily colored doors of death can’t come fast enough.” 

“Ah, come on, it’s not that bad.” You make your point by sniffing the collar of your shirt, only to find that Karkat’s right and you smell positively rank. Four weeks of sweating everyday hasn’t exactly done anything good for your natural musk, and you weren’t able to find any bodies of water big enough to do much more than refill your canteens and wipe yourself down a bit while you were in the woods. You’re dying for a proper bath. 

Karkat has pulled out the map while you were busy reacquainting yourself with your stench and now considers it with a frown. “Think that town’s about two miles out,” he tells you. “I’m sure we can distract them from your disgusting body odor for long enough that we can find you someplace to bathe. Maybe we can even convince them it’s some kind of medical disorder so they’ll take pity on you and just give us a room at an inn for free, bathtub included! Perhaps they’ll even throw in some industrial strength floral scented soap to try and break through the seven layers of grime and filth that have made their home on your pathetic human skin, just to save the rest of us the trouble of having to be around you any longer than absolutely necessary.” 

“Hey man, not all of us were endowed with divine cleanliness or whatever,” you whine. “Just admit that you’re jealous of how rugged and sexy I smell so we can move on.” 

“If ‘rugged and sexy’ is human slang for ‘rancid and nauseating,’ then yes you smell incredibly like both of those things.” 

He hands the map over with a sigh and you fold it up for him, making sure not to add any unnecessary creases as per usual. He sticks it back in his bag when you’re done and double checks your direction before heading off towards the town to the northeast; it’s a bit out of your way, but you’re starting to feel dead on your feet from being without a bed for so long and Karkat’s hardly overreacting about the way you smell. It’s probably worth the brief detour, despite how much your anxiety tries convincing you otherwise.

It takes a few more minutes of walking, but you eventually get close enough to pick out the signs of civilization that you’ve started to miss so deeply. You pass by a large field of sugarcane, encounter long trodden dirt paths leading further east, and start to hear a steady, booming drum beat as you approach the nearby city. When you and Karkat eventually crest a small hill to get a full view of the town, you’re met with the explosive sounds and colors of an energetic solstice festival. 

Even from the edge of the city limits, you can see throngs of people milling through the streets, hear the deep bass of music being played from a source you can’t find. The town square, nothing more than a colorful whirlwind of activity in the distance, seems to be the center of it all. Karkat leads the way up a dirt path that soon becomes paved, and you have to stick close to make sure you don’t lose him in all the people who seem to be flowing up to the center of the town. You bump shoulders with about a dozen people in just a few moments and soon realize, with an odd feeling in your gut, that everyone looks just like you. 

You’re not able to get a good look until you and Karkat make it to the town square a few minutes later, but your initial assessment proves correct. Everywhere you look you see another person bearing the same light hair and warm brown skin as you, though heightened by the colorful patterns they all seem to be adorned with. Your eye catches on men wearing knee-length wrap tunics and women in flowing dresses made from silky material, all of which you’re able to recognize as the traditional clothing of the mid-southern Jade District. And all around the haze of vibrantly decorated bodies, you can see the telltale marks of a solstice festival - merchant booths set up nearby, musicians seated in neat circles to play deep, booming music, lanterns and streamers strung over your heads to further illuminate the space. The air smells of fresh flowers and cooking meat, and the sun beats down on you with the heat of the longest day of the year. 

You may have passed through this area on your initial journey, you can hardly remember, but you certainly weren’t present when it was anything like  _ this _ . It’s almost overwhelming, to go from being nearly alone with only Karkat as company, to suddenly stumbling headfirst into the biggest celebration of the year. And with so many people who look just like you, who look just like  _ Rose _ , you start to feel a sour, homesick stone settle into the bottom of your stomach. 

Karkat’s hand has clenched onto the hem of your shirt during your musings, and you come back to yourself as he pulls you away from the crowd. You manage to press yourselves up against a nearby building, backs against cool stone as you look out into the huge mass of festival-goers and take a moment to breathe. 

“Holy shit,” Karkat says. 

“Yeah,” you agree. 

The two of you fall silent in awe and disorientation as you take in the city square from your new vantage point. The festival is positively massive, and you can hardly see any of the booths or tables set up through all of the people in the street, the whole population seemingly outside to celebrate. You’re just able to make out the procession of dancers moving to the drum beat that’s been thumping up your spine so consistently, and they’re dressed in the traditional greens and reds of solstice celebrations, some wearing masks donning the face of Calliope, others in decorative makeup. You can spot some other residents offering up food and gold for her on a large table near the center of the festivities, lain gently in the hopes that she’ll bring balanced weather and good harvests for the coming year, while others thank her for the continued cycles that allow their lives to exist - night and day, cold and heat, rain and drought. One can’t function without the other, and living well requires an equal amount of both. 

You’ve never really celebrated the summer solstice before, the Copper District was more concerned with the winter season, but you understand the gist of it. The summer solstice isn’t just the longest day of the year, but also the day that the sun is highest in the sky. You know from your brief schooling that people celebrate by honoring the Muse Calliope, as the high sun lets humans feel closer to her celestial residence, which soars in the cosmos somewhere above Skaia. You always kind of thought that the idea of feeling closer to Calliope because the sun was especially high was rather asinine, but you’ve yet to find a human tradition that isn’t at least a little bit ridiculous. It seems fairly harmless, though, and from what you can see it looks more like a celebration of life in general, with people dancing together, sharing food, talking and singing. Once you get past the overwhelming nature of it all, it looks like a lot of fun. 

The winter solstice, however, is much less pleasant. Where the summer celebration is about joining together to honor the primordial goddess of life and balance, the winter festivities are based much more in fear, and the idea of appeasement. You recall being a child and having your brother convince you to give your last piece of bread away to Caliborn on the night of the solstice, dark and freezing cold outside. He would tell you that Caliborn would make your life a living hell if you didn’t give him an offering, and scared you into it just about every year until you were finally old enough to know better. The winter solstice was mostly spent inside, as people often used the short daylight hours to gather what they could to burn for Caliborn in the hopes that their offerings would appease his discordant nature and prevent him from making their lives any more difficult in the coming year. You’re not sure it really made much of a difference in the Copper District, where food was scarce and money scarcer, and though you gave away your bread every solstice for over a decade, you never ended up having any more to spare than the year prior. 

Karkat’s voice rings in your head suddenly at the thought of strange, normally futile human rituals. In reality, it’s laughably absurd to send the ancient god of chaos and dissonance some bread and a nice letter asking him to please not kill your crops or give you pneumonia this year, when he’s probably too busy stirring shit up underneath Alternia to give even half of a fuck about humans. You think it might be equally sad, then, to give the goddess of balance a pretty gold coin in an effort to make sure you have enough food to eat this year, if only because the weather cycles and crop harvests that dictate your life are completely out of your control. 

That’s all these rituals are, you realize - sad, futile attempts to wrench some control out of the grasp of gods who care so little about the humans they made. You feel almost relieved to know that you were never fully tricked into believing the rituals worked at all, so you never had the chance to be disappointed when they ultimately proved worthless. But when you look out at the hundreds of smiling faces of people celebrating their goddess, people who might spend their last gold coins on desperate wishes sent to a heaven that’s not listening, the feeling warps into a deep sort of pity instead. 

“Might have a hard time finding somewhere to stay,” Karkat’s voice drifts into your ear. You think he’s been talking for a while, but you’re not sure. “Probably a lot of people visiting from out of town.” 

“We’ll find something.” 

Another quick look into the crowd reveals a further insight into the locals - you don’t see a single golden horn or smiling gray face among them. The two of you are already gaining curious glances from people, even being wallflowers at the edge of the festivities, and you suddenly don’t think you’ll have any issues getting a room somewhere. You press a hand into Karkat’s back, warmer than the midsummer heat, and lead him down a side street and away from the crowd. 

You’re able to find a fairly well-kept inn a ways down the road, where only a few brightly colored stragglers are hanging around nearby. The inside is pretty up to standard compared to most of the other inns you’ve been in - most of the space is just a big open room filled with wooden tables and a small bar. A large, spiralling staircase greets you near the entrance, and you can see the innkeeper at a counter near the back, clearly having just come off from the lively dancing going on in the center of town. There are flowers in her hair, and makeup smeared around her eyes, and she reminds you so much of Rose that you almost want to turn around and leave. 

She seems delighted by Karkat’s very presence, and is quick to give you a room key even when he rudely demands that you be given one with access to a bathtub. Soon you’re climbing the spiral stairs to the second floor, where a sparsely furnished but well-cleaned room waits for you. There’s a large bed - an  _ actual  _ bed - and a less impressive dresser with a small mirror. A big window sits in the far wall, and in the distance you can still see the bright colors of the festival, pinks and yellows and greens fluttering around together in a vibrant rainbow. 

You don’t take long to admire the sights and instead toss your bag and sword onto the mattress to make a beeline for the adjoining door, where you find a humble bathroom. You don’t really care about the lack of decadent furnishings and only focus on the fact that there’s a bathtub present, and when you try the rusty handpump you almost cry in relief as hot, clean water pours into the basin. 

“Alright, I take back everything I said,” you call to Karkat. “Not only are the gods benevolent as fuck but they also care about me specifically, dude, I’m gonna start praying everyday starting now. Who’s the god of baths, do you know him? Can you deliver a message? Hey bro, thanks so much for the hot water, I’m gonna love being naked in it.” 

You can hear Karkat sigh and he meets you in the doorway to the bathroom, arms unenthusiastically crossed over his chest. “You’d be better off finding the local water nymph who’s probably responsible for all the freshwater around here,” he points out. “I’m sure they’d appreciate the support.” 

“So no god of baths?” you confirm. 

“No,” Karkat says. “I’ll take it up with Skaia though, put it in the divine suggestion box for Calliope herself to consider for you.” 

“Cool,” you say. “If there’s not a bath god by next week I’m filing an official complaint.” 

“Historically that’s a great idea,” he jokes. “Has really worked out for humans in the past.” 

You laugh and stare into the bathtub as it fills up, the rippling reflection of your own dirty face staring back at you. Silence starts to fill the room, save for the sound of the tub filling with water, and when you glance back up at Karkat he’s already looking at you. 

“Uh,” you say. “I’m gonna-”

“Yeah, I’ll let you-”

“I shouldn’t be long-”

“I’ll go find some food-”

“Cool,” you say. 

“Great,” Karkat says, and he closes the door behind him. 

Suddenly you’re alone, more alone than you’ve been in the last month, and you’re not sure what to do with yourself. The hot bath is tempting, but something about it is making you hesitate, the idea of being by yourself with nothing but your thoughts for the first time in weeks more daunting than comforting. You fuck around in the bathroom for a while, inspecting the toilet, double checking that the curtains are drawn over the small circular window opposite the door. There’s a soft, pine-scented bar of soap at the sink, and you give it a curious sniff before setting it back down. You’re wasting time. 

You catch your reflection in the tiny, dirty mirror over the basin just as you go to turn back towards the bathtub, and find yourself drawn to your visage in the murky glass. You look like an absolute mess, which you can’t say is surprising, but something in the color of your eyes makes you stop for a moment. You look different - maybe your hair is lighter from the sun, your cheeks more freckled from days spent outside - but what stands out to you most is the oddly vibrant hue of your eyes. You’ve always had strange, bright eyes, similar to your brother’s in their sometimes off putting shade of deep copper, but you’ve never seen them quite like this. After weeks with little sleep and no proper food you’d expect to see them sallow, dull and tired, though when you look into the mirror all that stares back at you is a rich, vivid red. 

You start to feel warm, enough so that you even turn around to double check that Karkat isn’t still nearby. You let a strange uneasiness fill you for just a moment before you squeeze your eyes shut and will the feeling away entirely, clearing your vision afterwords only to find that your irises are still an irritating, bright shade of crimson. 

You take a long bath, and avoid your reflection in the clear water.

* * *

You must fall asleep at some point, because you awaken some time later to a setting sun and cold, tepid bathwater. The skin around your fingers and toes has wrinkled deeply, to the point where they’re nearly painful, and you brace yourself against the sides of the tub in anticipation of lifting your aching body out of the chilled water. It’s an effort, but you’re able to get out of the bath and into the light, scratchy towel provided for you with only a few joints cracking and popping along the way. 

When you exit the bathroom, you’re met with an interesting scene. Karkat is seated on the bed sporting a crown of red flowers, surrounded by a plethora of sweet looking food and remnants of the festival you can still hear surging outside. He’s struggling to bite into a large apple that’s been coated in caramel and placed on a stick, and you spy three more in a small wooden tray by the dresser. He doesn’t notice you enter the room until you clear your throat, and when he looks up at you it’s with pink-tinged cheeks, just noticeable through the green makeup smudged below his eyes. 

“Oh, good,” he says casually. “Thought you had died in there. Have humans changed their bathing habits since I was last here? Because I didn’t realize it was typical for you to bathe for upwards of two hours, during which little to no signs of life were observed from within the bathroom.” 

“Fell asleep,” you say as you cross your room to where your bag sits on the mattress, amongst the hoards of food. “Guess you had fun outside though, make any friends? Get some sweet deals on food? Who did your makeup, can they do mine? I don’t think the green will compliment my skin tone but it might bring out my eyes.” 

Karkat rolls his eyes and shifts so his back is to you, letting you dress in private. While you normally wouldn’t care, you’re actually thankful for the gesture; you feel oddly exposed suddenly, like you’re bearing a new body part you’re only partially aware of, as though everyone is able to see some new limb you’ve generated while you’re still having trouble finding it.

“Humans have no concept of personal space,” Karkat answers as you dress. “Not only was I immediately accosted with a floral headband that bears basically no meaning whatsoever, I also had three different people attempt to smear my skin with brightly colored substances that, shockingly, hold no value either.” 

“Yeah, that’s humans for you,” you agree. Your clothes are filthy, and you’ve already gone through the few pieces you’d had leftover from your first journey south. You pick the least disgusting shirt and pants you have and make a note to wash the others later. 

“I just wanted to find some sustenance to fuel your nasty habit of needing food to survive, and instead I got makeup and confetti,” Karkat continues with a huff of irritation. You can see him gesture with the candy apple in his hand, sticking his arm out to the side to show you. “They didn’t have those squishy apple things you like, so I got these instead. Tried to pay for them like a normal person but no one would take my goddamn money, so I basically robbed these poor fucks blind.” 

“Talk about a divine discount.” 

“Better than the shithead who tried to overcharge me down at the border,” he gripes. 

You finish dressing and swipe the candy apple out of Karkat’s hand, earning a grunt and a smack on the arm in response. “This one’s mine,” he states, and directs you to the nearby tray where three others sit, slowly getting stickier as they warm up in the heat of the room. 

“Why’d you get so many?” you say with a laugh. “Is there some kinda candy apple shortage? Stocking up for an inevitable apocalypse where every apple on the planet ceases to exist because of a sudden and detrimental blight?” 

“I thought you might like them,” Karkat says simply, and suddenly it stops being funny. 

You pause, and pick up one of the candies to inspect it. It’s shiny, the caramel a rich golden brown, and when you bite into it the flesh of the apple is perfectly crisp and juicy, just how you like it. You glance back at Karkat to find him experimentally chewing on his own treat, teeth that are just a little too sharp digging into the crackling exterior, and he tilts his head as he considers the flavor. 

The food spread over the thin bed catches your eye, and you drag your gaze across the jars and pouches of dried fruits, crusty bread, and cured meats, getting your first good look at everything. Some of it looks familiar to you, while other jars are full of things you don’t recognize, likely special items reserved for the solstice festival. There’s a lot of it, too, more than you had originally brought with you, and you can’t help but think of sharing it with Karkat again when you get back on the road. 

He’s enjoying the candy apple in earnest now, chewing on the sticky confectionery while flipping idly through a book he’d picked up during his time outside. His cheeks are still a little pink under the slightly faded green of his makeup, and the flowers in his crown are getting lost in his wild thicket of hair. A stray bit of half-melted caramel clings to his thumb and he casually licks it off, pink tongue darting out to rid his luminous gray skin of the brief imperfection. Something in your jaw jumps, and you feel your stomach clench uncomfortably. 

You set down the apple in favor of packing your bag with as much food as you can fit in it, sneaking glances at Karkat all the while. When your pack is stuffed to the brim with jars and containers, you retrieve your apple and join Karkat on the bed, sitting close enough to him that you can feel the strange heat that always seems to be radiating off his skin. Still chilled from your long bath, you find yourself scooting a little closer to him, trying to leech some of his warmth into your own skin despite the high temperatures outside. The humid summer heat still permeating the air doesn’t quite compare to Karkat, though; where the weather is stuffy and restricting, Karkat is gentle and familiar, like sitting in front of an inviting fire after a long day in the cold. You feel yourself wanting to lean into him, wanting to press your shoulders together until you can feel warmth spread to each of your fingers and toes, thawing you from the inside out. 

But you don’t. Instead you bite into your apple and ask, “What’s your book about?” and the feeling that ignites in your gut when Karkat starts animatedly explaining it to you is nearly the same. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woah we got some Exposition in this one! what will acedavestrider do next??? write a plot?? find out next time
> 
> thank u all once again for being sweet to me! it helps a bunch on days when im Going Through It a bit more than usual <3 
> 
> see nyall next week


	6. Chapter 6

You end up staying in the small Jade town for a bit longer than is strictly necessary, under the guise of preparing for the rest of your journey. You take another bath, wash your clothes, eat a few too many meat pies and candy apples, and by the time you leave the next afternoon you’re feeling a little more human. 

When you leave the inn later in the day you find the town is strikingly desolate in comparison to the flurry of activity you stumbled upon yesterday. The main square is mostly deserted, and half-ripped streamers drag onto the worn stone streets amongst other remnants of the party. You have to step over a puddle of spilled face paint to make your way through the debris and Karkat lets out an annoyed groan behind you when he accidentally places his foot squarely into an overturned slice of cake. 

“Son of a bitch,” he cries, wiping the bottom of his shoe on the ground. “It’s like a fucking tornado blew through here.” 

“Guess people partied too hard,” you muse. 

You had seen a lot of wine going around, especially later in the night, and you can only assume that most of the population is now at home nursing wild hangovers. You and Karkat hadn’t participated much, instead staying in to prep for being back on the road in the morning. Most of your night was spent gorging yourself on good food while Karkat rambled about his book to you - some kind of fantasy romance novel, if you remember correctly - and then you’d gotten some much needed rest. Sleeping in a real bed for a night was blissful, and the dreamless sleep you’d achieved was so deep that you didn’t awaken until sometime around noon, drooling on your pillow and tangled in the sheets. When you’d asked Karkat why he hadn’t woken you up sooner he’d just smoothed out his hair, messier than usual, and shrugged it off. 

“Let’s get out of here before I start breaking out in hives around all this disgusting human debauchery,” Karkat continues complaining. He plucks a stray streamer off his shoulder with a wrinkle of his nose and deposits it on the ground nearby. 

“What, not feeling debaucherous?” you ask, stopping to gesture at all the mess around you. “All this excess and depravity doesn’t get you going? You’re telling me you see these remnants of a night of lasciviousness and reveling in life’s greatest pleasures and you don’t feel the need to start getting drunk or having sex with strangers?” 

“The meer concept of drunkenness and the potential appeal of the activity are baffling to me,” he admits, skipping over your other comments. “Why in Calliope’s name would you purposely ingest a substance that makes you sick afterwords? You fucking humans are running around drinking poison like it’s a ha-ha silly game and then when it inevitably kills you my people have to clean up the godamn mess.” 

“I dunno, man, I guess being drunk is fun for some people?” you say. 

“Do _you_ like it?” 

“Never been drunk,” you say with a shrug. “Tried to a few times but I think I’ve just got a crazy high tolerance… And Bro would’ve kicked my ass if I got into his bottles anyways.” 

“Huh,” Karkat muses, eyes drawing comfortably up and down your frame, examining your build and the potential of your alcohol immunity. “I’m sure it pains you to miss out on such a profanely stupid human indulgence.” 

“Not really,” you laugh. You kind of got a bellyful of drunkenness living with Bro; you think you’ll pass. “I’ll stick with other ‘human indulgences’ like having sex and eating apple candies.” 

“Naturally,” Karkat says. “But one of those you better not even _think about_ engaging in while I’m gracing you with my company, unless you want to find out exactly how mortal you are.” 

“Sure thing.” You step over a puddle of spilled wine and turn to Karkat with a grin. “I promise not to eat apple candies in front of you anymore.” 

You get a middle finger in your face as a result and Karkat powers ahead of you without another word. You follow him through the plaza and down a side street, the two of you only encountering a few bleary-eyed strangers along the way. The town starts to diminish around you as you slowly make your way out of the district limits and back to the rolling hills and sparse trees of the mid-south, where you’re eventually greeted by bright sunlight and soft grass under your feet. 

It doesn’t take long for you to shift back into a more resolute mindset once you find yourself on the road again, though it’s with a lighter step this time. The rest you were able to get in town was invigorating, and despite your still present reservations you feel a little less completely demoralized regarding the prospects of getting your sister back. Karkat visibly straightens his shoulders as well, and you see him determinedly set his jaw as you begin the next leg of your trip through the tall grass of the plains. 

Your brief respite in the city hardly interrupts your routine for more than a moment, and you and Karkat are able to pick up exactly where you left off - travel during the day, set up for the night, break down your camp in the morning, repeat. The scenery doesn’t change much around you, to the point where it’s almost disorienting; the plains seem to repeat infinitely in a way that the forest didn’t quite mimic, making it seem as though you’ve been standing in the same place for hours rather than making any headway. The only things breaking up the endless grass fields you trudge through are the occasional sparse bush or particularly steep hill. Karkat refers to the map over and over and reassures you that you’ll pass through the area in a few weeks time, but you sometimes have trouble believing him. 

Beyond the dizzying expanse of the plains, another problem arises fairly soon that you weren’t prepared to account for - you start to run out of fuel for your fire. Despite the hot air of summertime, the nights still bring a chill to your bones, especially now that you don’t have the shelter of trees to block the wind from cutting into your bedroll; the fire is essential to keep you from freezing half to death during the night. You hadn’t originally passed through the mid-southern plains for more than a day or so, having had the option to take a more western route on your initial way south, so firewood was hardly ever an issue until now. You only have so much in your bags to spare for fuel, so Karkat takes it upon himself to scour the area for errant twigs and dry patches of grass to gather while you sleep. It becomes a daily and necessary task, and Karkat seems more than happy to have something to do while he waits for you to get up. 

Karkat is back from his excursion by the time you wake up most days, but one morning a week or so into your new routine you awaken to find that he still hasn’t returned. It worries you for maybe a moment, until you crane your neck and spot him some ways off, at the crest of a nearby hill picking around in the grass for materials. He’s a dark gray splotch on the otherwise bright green landscape, clear as day from your perspective, and seeing him on his knees plucking twigs out of the ground makes a warm sort of familiarity curl around your stomach. 

He doesn’t seem to notice that you’ve woken up, so you pass the time by putting away your bedroll and tamping out the small, dimming fire. You put some jars of food back in your bag that you’d been snacking on the night before, and strap your sword to your back in preparation of leaving soon. Except when you turn back around you find that Karkat has disappeared from the hill, likely climbing over the crest in search of more fuel. He’s headed in the opposite direction that you’re meant to continue towards later so you don’t exhaust the limited availability of materials around you, and you don’t really see the point in confusing your sense of direction further by following after him. You decide to just wait for him to get back, and settle down onto the grass with a light sigh. 

It takes about ninety seconds for you to get bored. You glance around for Karkat a few times only to find nothing but blue sky and green grass, and the boredom starts to twist into an itchy anxiety instead. You’re ready to get going, you want to move, but you don’t want to risk getting lost if you head out to try and find him. It makes you antsy, to just be sitting still without the option of moving forward, and your sword starts to sit heavily against your back. 

It’s been a long time since you’ve had to use your sword. You consider that a good thing, mostly; you were lucky enough that you didn’t encounter more than a few hostile animals on your way south, and even fewer hostile humans, so your sword’s biggest utility was cutting through dense brush or breaking open jars with too-tight lids. But the odd jumping in your heartbeat and the heaviness of the metal at your back suddenly make you feel the need to practice again, to let your muscles remember what it’s like to actually fight, just in case it’s needed, just in case you have to. 

Sword fighting isn’t necessarily your favorite thing to do, but it is something you’re inordinately good at. A decade of your brother’s grueling training, and years of practice after the fact, have made you something of a master when it comes to your blade. It helps that you’ve been using the same sword since you were old enough to hold one, and as a result the weapon feels like a natural extension of your body, even after weeks without proper use. 

After a quick warmup, making sure to roll your shoulders and pop a caught muscle in your neck, you remove your blade from its holster and consider it in your hands. It’s always been an unusually light weapon, the other swords you’d gotten your hands on much heavier in comparison, and it lends to an easy and smooth fighting style that you’ve spent years perfecting. 

There’s nothing around for you to use as a training dummy, so you imagine one instead. Tall, broad-shouldered, hair so blonde it’s almost white. A piercing orange gaze barely concealed by a sense of boredom and monotony. A looming figure standing over your short frame. A calloused hand reaching for your wrist. 

You take a deep breath, square your shoulders, and lunge. 

It’s unsettling how easy it is for you to fight. You hardly think about your movements, only focusing on how your imagined opponent moves, on how to stop him from hurting you. The motions come to you as easily as breathing, walking. Parry, block, pivot. Pass forward, shed, advance. Fight, survive. Like clockwork. 

You defeat the shadow of your brother three times over before you notice that Karkat has returned, and you have no idea how long he’s been watching you. When you catch his eye you can see that he’s surprised, like maybe he’s impressed with you, until he schools his expression into something with far less enthrallment. 

“Is there a reason you’re trying to beat up the air?” he asks you cooly. He sets a small pile of twigs and leaves next to your bag with a light thump. “Did the wind say something so heinous to you that you feel the need to stab it repeatedly?”

“Just practicing.” Your pulse is drumming. You’re sweating. Your breath keeps coming in bursts. Three phantoms of your brother’s corpse litter the field around you and you have to close your eyes for several seconds to make them go away. “Trying to stay fresh.” 

“Right,” Karkat says, eyeing your blade with something close to hesitancy, but not quite. “Think that’s the first time I’ve seen you use that damn thing, figured you were just carrying it around for show.” 

“Probably for the best,” you comment. “I almost killed your annoying telekinetic friend when he told me he couldn’t help me, but that was the last time the sword felt necessary.” 

Karkat shrugs. “Wouldn’t be the first time he got himself killed by pissing off some human.” 

“Happens a lot?” 

“You’d be surprised how many people die with weapons in their hands,” he explains. “Doesn’t really matter, though, he comes back every fucking time anyways. Maybe one day it’ll stick.” 

You laugh, but you don’t mean it, and you know he doesn’t either. His gaze is still drifting to your sword, held comfortably at your side, and when his eyes eventually flicker back up to yours you feel yourself start to grin. 

“Wanna try it?” you ask.

“No,” he says sharply, like he’s offended you’d even asked. But then he backtracks a bit and adds, “I’m used to dual-wielding weapons.” 

“Sounds like a lame excuse if you ask me,” you prod. You twirl the sword in your hand lazily and watch the way his eyes follow the movement. “Like maybe you’re scared or something.” 

“Scared?” He scoffs and rolls his eyes at you, and almost makes it look like he’s not bluffing. “What do I have to be scared of? That your dull human weapon will pierce my nearly impenetrable skin and spill my precious divine blood on the dirt?” 

“That would be a shame,” you agree cheekily. You turn the sword so the hilt is in his direction and give him a challenging raise of your eyebrows. “Come on dude, I know you wanna. You’ve been looking at it like it’s made of solid gold or something.” 

“As if that would mean jack shit to me,” he says, but takes it nonetheless. 

You’re thankful for the weight to be out of your hand, for the knuckles in your fingers to pop and crack as you finally release your grip on the blade. You didn’t realize you’d been holding it so tightly, and are grateful to see it in the hands of someone else for a change, someone you already trust more than you ever trusted your brother. 

Karkat handles the sword gently at first, weighing it in each hand and rotating his wrists to become more comfortable with the movement. You can see him visibly square his shoulders and stand up straighter under your gaze, and you watch in comfortable bemusement as he experiments with thrusting and parrying at his own invisible opponent. 

You can tell right off the bat that while Karkat is a practiced fighter, he’s not at all familiar with using a sword. His upper body gracefully follows through movements, his slashes and passes sure and quick, but his lower body is all off, hips twisted the wrong way, footwork sloppy. You think maybe he could use your help, and know exactly where you’d press your hands to correct his awkward stance, adjust the spacing of his limbs. 

You’ve just managed to calm down from your impromptu sword fight when your heart starts to pound again, your palms beginning to sweat for a different reason as Karkat turns to you with a grimace.

“How the fuck are you meant to use a weapon like this?” he asks, annoyed. “Both of your hands are preoccupied with the same blade and your range of motion is shit. My sickles are far superior to this.” 

“Well if you were doin’ it right it wouldn’t be so hard,” you point out. 

The look Karkat gives you is scandalized and you feel yourself brace when he takes in a deep, dramatic pause. 

“Oh, is that so, Dave?” he starts. “Do you really think that some kind of proper instruction would’ve allowed me to be better equipped to handle this weapon? It’s not my fault you humans like to use blades that are inefficient and difficult to maneuver, and it’s _definitely_ not my fault that you decided to thrust a useless saber into my hands in a weird show of bravado and expected me to be a master at it when someone of my stature wouldn’t even bother using such an impractical device to wipe their ass, nevermind use in battle.”

“I’ve been usin’ that thing for years,” you say. “Haven’t gotten killed yet.” 

Karkat gives you a once-over, and a stubborn, “Dumb luck.” 

You laugh and start to approach him. “Just lemme fix your form, dude-”

“Fuck you,” he starts to protest, except that his words cut off entirely when you step behind him and press your hands into his hips. You let a moment pass to give him the chance to move away, and when he doesn’t you clear your throat and begin your instruction. 

“So first of all your hip rotation is wack,” you start. Karkat lets out a challenging scoff and you push your thumbs into his lower back to make your point. “You gotta rotate ‘em with the movement so you follow through with your whole body, otherwise you’re gonna be hella stiff and way easier to knock down.” 

“Fine,” he grumbles, and you demonstrate by manually twisting his hips a few times, feeling his muscles shift beneath your hands. 

“Also, your footstance?” you continue. “Wack.” 

“Is there anything about my form that _isn’t_ ‘wack?’” he asks with a tilt of his head. You can’t see his expression from your position behind him, but you know he’s giving you the same little sneer he always gives you when you annoy him just the right way. “And is that the only descriptive word in your vocabulary? You can’t rack your brain for any other adjective to use?” 

“Wack is the technical term.” 

“Oh, of course! How could I not know that?” he exclaims sarcastically. 

“Yeah man, keep up,” you implore. “Anyways, about your footstance-”

“Enlighten me-”

“You’ve gotta widen up and pivot on this back leg,” you say, giving his back thigh a bold pat. “Put your weight on your front foot so that you can get maximum power behind your passes. Make sense?” 

He begrudgingly answers in the affirmative and you give him a few more pointers about his posture, all while using the thin excuse to keep your hands on him. He doesn’t once shy away from your touch, and you let yourself properly feel the strong muscle hiding underneath his sweater, the heat constantly radiating from his skin. When you think he’s gotten the gist of your instruction you pull away from him, hands lingering, and stand to his side to observe. 

“Alright, young pupil, show me what ya got,” you say, confident in your teaching. 

Karkat rolls his eyes, upper lip coming up in exaggerated annoyance, but gives you a brief demonstration anyways. He’s taken what you told him in stride and seems infinitely more comfortable with the blade this time around, easily thrusting and parrying against the air as if fighting an actual opponent. You double check his footwork and his hips to see if he’s retained any of your direction, and when you find yourself satisfied with his progress you let your eyes drift elsewhere. Maybe you spend some time admiring his thighs, the wider set of his shoulders, some other parts of him that aren’t exactly necessary to examine for swordfighting. He catches your eye after a moment, when you’re in the middle of studying the light pink color dusting over his cheeks, and gives you a raised eyebrow. 

“Is that more sufficient for you?” he asks. “Have I passed your test? Can you stop needling me about arbitrary things like footstance and hip position for a useless combat technique?” 

“Yeah, dude, you fuckin’ nailed it,” you encourage. “You get the prize for most improved student. The reward is you get to hang out with me for the next several months.” 

“I’m thrilled,” he deadpans. 

“Anyways, now that you’re an expert and all,” you start, coming around to stand in front of him. “Let’s see how you do against an actual opponent.” 

“I’m not gonna hit you,” Karkat says immediately. You see him hold the sword loosely at his side in obvious defiance of your request, and feel your heart throb. 

“No, you’re not,” you say confidently. “But you’re gonna try.” 

“You’re unarmed,” he points out. 

“I’ve got two arms right here,” you say, lifting them up to show him. He gives you an unamused look and you laugh. “Come on, man, I promise you won’t actually hit me. Just give it a shot, see how it feels.” 

“You’re mortal,” he adds. “If this goes horribly wrong and I slice your head off I’m not going to bother trying to revive you. I rescind all responsibility.” 

“Fair.” You nod. “Go ahead, I’m down.” 

Karkat steels himself for a moment before raising the sword, then takes another moment to fully assess your position relative to him, his own posture and stance, before moving forward. His thrust is well aimed, technique admirable, but he’s not fast enough. You’re able to dodge the movement with little effort, barely feeling the air blown against you from the motion, and you grasp at Karkat’s arm to twist it in the opposite direction. You’re at his side in the blink of an eye, grabbing his wrist and disarming him in little more than a few seconds, only to return the sword to your holster in one quick motion. 

“See? I told you you wouldn’t hit me,” you start to gloat, but Karkat isn’t looking at you, instead staring into the space that you were previously occupying. 

When he does eventually turn back to you it’s with confusion, and a single piece of hair out of place on his head. 

“How the fuck did you do that?” he asks incredulously. 

You shrug and adjust your sword. “Years of practice, dude, my bro drilled that shit into me-”

“No, no fuck that,” he interrupts with a wave of his hands. “I’ve been around for a long fucking time and I’ve never seen a human move that quick, what the fuck was that?” 

“Ah, man, I’m flattered,” you stutter, half-joking. “I guess I’m just… real fast?” 

“Understatement of the fucking century, Dave,” he says, a hand at his forehead like he’s trying to wrap his mind around something impossible. “What in Skaia’s name…” 

Karkat’s confused grumbling is interrupted by an ominous rumble of thunder above you, and you both turn skyward to find that heavy clouds have been rolling in while you were otherwise occupied. A rain drop lands unceremoniously onto Karkat’s cheek, only to slide off with little resistance as if he were made of glass, and he lets out a celestial string of curse words that ring out into the open air. Another drop falls, then several, then suddenly the whole sky opens up to pour a metric shitton of rain on you both, in the middle of a field with no cover. 

“Well,” you say, hair dripping water into your eyes. “Shit.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hewwo i have nothing witty or interesting to say in regards to this chapter because i am very tired and Feel Bad Today
> 
> thank u all for reading as per usual, i know i keep saying it but it really does mean a lot
> 
> also updates might be slower starting in a couple weeks because as i mentioned previously I Dont Feel Good but ill keep going at a pace i can hopefully maintain
> 
> okay cool later ✌🏽


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> small trigger warning for mentions of abuse a la bro strider, nothing graphic or detailed but wanted to include a warning just in case

“I thought you said monsoon season wasn’t for another month,” Karkat calls to you through the thick sheet of rain, tone accusatory. 

“I don’t know, man, I don’t control the weather,” you yell back. It’s raining so hard that you can barely see him next to you, and you have to squint to make out his shape. “It’s been fucked up for a couple months, talk to your people about it!” 

Karkat grumbles a few things in response that you can’t hear, and the two of you trudge through the wet grass in search of some kind of shelter from the pouring rain. You had hoped you wouldn’t encounter any bad weather on your way through the plains, but you guess whatever god is responsible for rain patterns has it out for you specifically, if your soaked clothes and matted hair are anything to go by. Your shoes squelch uncomfortably over the grass, becoming caked in mud in just a dozen or so steps, and you and Karkat have to constantly catch each other from slipping as you continue your search for a reprieve from the weather. 

Ten minutes pass and the rain hasn’t let up at all, but you feel Karkat tug on your sleeve to get your attention suddenly. You follow the direction he points in and have to wipe water out of your eyes to see whatever it is that he’s found, sighing in relief when your vision adjusts. A small cave, carved into the side of a large, rolling hill beckons you over as a sanctuary from the deluge continuing to drench you to the bone. Karkat’s warm hand, unusually dry for the circumstances, wraps around your wrist to pull you towards the cave and keeps you upright even as your shoes fail to find purchase on the slick grass. 

The cave is cold when you enter, but it’s immediately better than the rain continuing to surge just outside it’s rocky walls. You and Karkat both groan at the state of your clothes, and you grimace as he wrings out his sweater, leaving a puddle of water on the ground as a result. You do the same with your own shirt and shake out your hair like a wet dog in a sad attempt to rid yourself of some of the moisture seeping into your skin, but it barely helps. 

After taking a moment to breathe you turn to assess your surroundings and find… a whole lot of nothing. It’s too dark for you to see very far into the cave and you don’t want to waste whatever dry materials you managed to save just to make a torch, so you’re left with the simple impression that it’s a cave, and little more. The stone it’s made out of is a deep gray, walls smooth from years of erosion, and it’s even floor welcomes you when you decide to sit down. Karkat joins you at the mouth of the cave, settling onto the ground with a sigh, and the two of you sit next to each other and watch the rain fall. 

“So much for making any progress,” he comments irritably. “Between this shit and our impromptu sword fight we’ve basically lost a full day.” 

“It’s not too bad,” you say with a shrug. 

Normally you’d be anxious to keep moving forward, but in the last few days your nerves have ebbed in a different direction; you’re more afraid of failing to bring Rose back once you reach your hometown than of not getting there at all. The brief distraction is more than welcomed. 

“At least we got to fuck around a little,” you add. “That’s the most fun I’ve had with a sword in a while.” 

Karkat gives you a look, face shaded by shadows of the falling rain just outside the cave. “Sword fighting isn’t exactly supposed to be _fun_ , is it?” 

“Well no, but like…” You sigh, and feel your heart pinch around your next words. “I haven’t told you much about my brother, have I?” 

“You’ve mentioned him,” he mutters. “I’ve gathered that he was a piece of shit, but not much more than that.” 

You let out a sour laugh, if it can even be called that. “That’s not giving him enough credit, dude,” you say. “He was _the_ piece of shit.” 

Karkat just hums and looks at you with big, imploring eyes, giving you the space to continue if you want, and the permission to stop if it proves too difficult. You stare down at the floor and press your fingers into the dirt as you speak, distracted and all too aware at the same time. 

“I dunno,” you start, uncertain. It’s been a long time since you’ve talked to anyone about your brother, and Rose was the last person who offered you any understanding about the matter. “He was just… brutal. To him, fighting was more about killing the person on the other side than just trying to protect yourself, I guess. And he made that pretty fucking clear every time we would spar, like… when I was youger he’d smack the broad side of his sword against me every time he found an opening and tell me I’d be dead if he were someone else.” 

You glance over at Karkat, watch his eyes focus on where your fingers continue to fidget against the pebbles at your side. He doesn’t say anything. 

“And then once I got older he’d just go ahead and hit me straight on,” you continue. It makes your heart rate spike up just to say it, the memories of sparring with someone who actively hated you making your chest hurt. “It was never enough to really _hurt me,_ I guess, just enough to… make his point. I mean - it _did_ hurt, because it was a fucking sword, but if he wanted to kill me he would have just done it. He would nick me a couple times, just to make me bleed, scare me a little… then he’d correct my stance and we’d go again.” 

“How old were you?” Karkat asks suddenly. You look up at him but he doesn’t meet your eyes. 

“We started sparring when I was maybe nine? Ten?” you try to remember. Whatever the age, it was too young. “He, uh, died when I was sixteen.” 

“ _Good_ ,” Karkat says, with a certain amount of ire in his voice that it makes you startle a little. His eyes have brightened just enough that you’re able to notice the saturated, crimson color of his irises as he brings his gaze up to your face. “People like that go straight to Derse, Dave,” he assures you. “And fuck if he doesn’t deserve everything they’re doing to him down there.” 

“Oh, I know,” you agree, and you release your grip on the dirt beneath you, wipe your hand on the damp fabric of your pants. “The thought of the Midnight Crew making his afterlife extremely fucking difficult is one of the few things helping me sleep at night, man. Maybe that’s fucked up of me-” 

“It’s not,” Karkat interrupts. 

“Yeah…” You clear your throat and pull your knees up to your chest, propping your elbows on top of them to try and stay warm. You’ve started to shake; from the cold, or anxiety, or thoughts of your brother, you’re not sure. 

“Anyways,” you say. “Teaching you to fight was way better than most of the shit I’ve had to do with a sword. Even if you suck at it.” 

“Right,” he scoffs. “Because my ineptitude with a sword is definitely my fault, and not the result of a bad teacher.” 

You shrug. “Maybe I just need to teach you more, then.” Said like a question, to which Karkat responds with a playfully raised eyebrow, as if to challenge you. 

After watching you for a moment, seeing you tremble next to him, Karkat asks in a low voice, “Are you cold?” 

You don’t really know. “Yeah,” you say. 

He nods and scoots closer to you, his body covering the dent you’d made in the floor with your anxious ministrations. Just being close to him helps, his godly body heat warming your right side, but then he raises his hand and lets it rest against your lower back, his fingers just poking under your shirt to reach your skin. You hold in a sigh at the sensation and give him an even look. 

“Thanks,” you say, and you’re not talking about the heat. 

Karkat doesn’t reply, and instead gives you the closest thing to a genuine smile you’ve seen from him before turning back to stare out at the pouring rain. 

Calmness comes to you, albeit very slowly. The rain has barely slackened by the time the rhythm of your heart returns to a more comfortable cadence, though you can finally see sunlight and blue sky just behind the wall of gray clouds above you. Karkat continues drumming a lazy beat against the small of your back and your clothes have dried to a slightly less irksome state at this point. The rain will let up soon; it’s almost time to go. 

Just as you’re about to make this thought clear to Karkat, a distinctive roll of thunder erupts around you, loud enough that you feel it in your skin. You both startle, as the storm has been little more than a quiet downpour at this point, and Karkat glances up to the sky with a little grimace. He opens his mouth to speak but is interrupted by another, louder boom, one that shakes the ground beneath you and rattles your bones. 

“What the fuck,” you voice in its aftermath. “Man, who’d we piss off? What’s with the godly thunder all of a sudden?” 

Karkat doesn’t answer you with much other than the suspicious narrowing of his eyes, and another pointed look at the sky. 

“Someone really doesn’t want us to leave this goddamn cave, I guess,” you supply in his silence. “You got beef with someone upstairs? Tell the wrong deity to fuck off and now he’s making shit hard for us? A tormented ex-lover, perhaps? Wait, shit, is it Sollux? He does shit with lighting right? Did y’all-”

Another crash of thunder booms around you and Karkat stands suddenly, everything in his posture amplifying his sense of alert. You stand with him and meet his eyes in the same moment that you realize two very important things - firstly, that there hasn’t been a single flash of lightning in the sky since the storm started. And secondly, that the thunder hasn’t been coming from above you, but rather from behind you. 

You both turn a moment to late. A huge, looming figure emerges from the depths of the caves, the vibrations of its heavy footfalls making you stumble, and by the time you regain your balance the wide, sweeping arm of a very angry bicyclops is already hurtling towards you. You manage to grab onto Karkat’s sleeve and pull you both away in time, just barely missing getting crushed by the massive creature in front of you, and you recollect yourselves near the mouth of the cave, out of reach of the behemoth still coming towards you. Karkat looks at you with wide eyes. 

“Fuck,” he says. 

You pull your sword from your back in preparation of a fight, and feel a brief moment of panic as you realize that Karkat doesn’t have a weapon beyond the tiny hunting knife that’s inside your bag, lying between you and the bicyclops. You turn to him to shout something, maybe to tell him to run, but find that within the few moments you weren’t looking he’d somehow managed to materialize two sharp, glowing sickles in his hands. They’re made of a deep black metal, and the shimmering curved blades glint in the minimal light of the cave, divine and otherworldly. You stare at them for a second, confused as to how they got there, and why their dark material is so startlingly close to that of your sword. 

“We won’t be able to outrun it,” Karkat says loudly, over the guttural roar of an animal who’s had it’s home invaded. “We’ll have to fight.” 

He focuses his gaze at you, celestial red burning into earthly copper, to ask if you’ll be okay, if it’s been too long since your last fight, if the things you spoke of earlier are going to hinder your ability to protect yourself. 

You tighten your grip on your sword, “Fine with me,” and aim for the goddamn thing’s knees. 

Fighting alongside Karkat is thrilling, and distracting. Where your moves are quick and smooth, Karkat is jagged and calculated. You can tell that he’s much more comfortable with his sickles, likely from centuries of practice, and with your combined efforts you’re able to distract both heads of the beast in front of you. One of its eyes, red and glowing with psionic energy, follows your movements around the cave, roaring as you leave a gash just below its left knee. An equally angry, blue-eyed face searches for Karkat, hidden amongst the cave’s deep shadows, only to let out an anguished cry when his sickles find purchase in the creature’s other leg. It’s an enormous animal, though, and doesn’t go down easy. 

“Son of a bitch,” you shout after a well-aimed swat of the bicyclops’ hand momentarily unbalances you. You pull back to gather your breath, pushing your hair out of your face. “Why couldn’t we have stumbled into a cave of fucking fairy bulls or something?” 

“Fairy bulls can still be violent,” Karkat calls as he actively dodges the beast’s attempts to hit him, “if you threaten their young.” 

“How the hell would you know?” you shout back. You enter back into the fray to distract the bicyclops while Karkat maneuvers around to attack its other side, and manage to land a few more hits with minimal damage to your own body. 

“I was there when we made the damn things!” Karkat clarifies with a vicious swing of his sickles into the creature’s thigh. The roar it lets out shakes the entire cave around you, dislodging several large rocks that you only just barely manage to avoid. 

A hot spike of fear wells inside you as you worry that the two of you may have only managed to anger the animal further, but a few more slices of your sword sends it scurrying back into the depths of the cave with a defeated whimper. It leaves an unfortunate trail of muddy yellow blood in its path, on your sword, staining your clothes, and the sight makes your stomach curl; you hope you didn’t kill it. 

“Well,” Karkat says into the echoing cave, though he doesn’t finish his thought. When you turn to him you’re met with the usual - no sweat, no heavy breathing, appearance in perfect order - until you notice the tiny splash of blood on the hem of his sweater, bright yellow against his otherwise dark palette. He gives you a onceover too, checking for injuries, blood of a different color. When he finds nothing of concern, he moves to face towards the mouth of the cave. 

The rain has stopped. 

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he suggests, and in the blink of an eye his sickles, both foreign and familiar, phase out of existence in a burst of light. 

“Seconded,” you agree. You gather your things together and exit the cave, leaving behind only the suggestion of a fight and little other evidence that you were ever there at all. 

You walk quietly for a while, with nothing but the sound of your shoes squelching on the wet grass to break up the silence around you. You’re too jittery to form a coherent thought, like your skin is buzzing with electricity, and it pairs oddly with how the emotional whiplash from the last few hours has so fully exhausted you. You pick at your nails, and wring your hands together, and try to remember the last time you actually had to use your sword to defend yourself. 

“It’s getting dark,” Karkat starts to say after a few hours, at the same time that you ask, “Do you think we killed it?” 

Karkat gives you an odd look. “What?” he asks. 

“Do you think we killed the bicyclops?” you repeat. “Like, we just barge into its house and then kill it when it gets mad? That seemed kinda fucked up, you know? If someone broke into your house and then murdered you for no reason I’m pretty sure that’d send them to Derse, right?” 

“We didn’t kill it,” he assures you, in a tone that’s very matter of fact. 

“How do you know? Did you see all the fucking blood everywhere, I mean-”

He stops walking suddenly to fully get your attention. “Dave, I work for Death herself,” he reminds you. “I think I’d fucking know if we killed it.” 

“Right,” you say. You guess that sometime in the last couple months you’d managed to forget that very specific fact. You wonder when it was. 

“Anyways, it’s getting dark,” he repeats. “We should stop for tonight.” 

You nod your silent agreement, too tired to argue otherwise, and get to work on setting up camp. Karkat works on the fire while you get out your bedroll and set it up on top of the tarp to stop the wet grass from seeping into your clothes while you sleep. Karkat hands you your canteen after you settle in and you realize suddenly that you’re both starving and dying of thirst, so you dig around in your bags until you find something sufficient to eat. You grab some jerky and a piece of bread that’s only kind of soggy and take your time eating, savoring it. You offer Karkat a bit of the jerky but he finds it to be “a leathery and offensive excuse for food” and leaves the rest to you. 

Karkat watches you for a bit, to make sure you eat enough or to marvel at how you manage to digest the apparently repulsive jerky you’re not sure, before pulling out the book he’d picked up in the small Jade town a few weeks back. You know he’s finished it several times already - he’s spent ample time recounting the strengths and weaknesses of the plot to you - but you guess there’s not much else for him to do while you sit around being human. You watch him, too, and a thought comes to you. 

“Hey, so like,” you start. Karkat looks up at you without lifting his head, eyes peering through his hair. You swallow. “Can you always summon dope-looking god weapons or is that like a one-time thing? And can you summon other shit, too? Like if I asked you to make a sandwich appear right now would you be able to? Because if you’ve just been letting me scavenge for food when you’ve been able to appearify it this whole time then that’s kind of a dick move, I’m just sayin’.” 

Karkat holds out his left hand in answer, palm open and facing outward. A flash of bright light emanating from his skin makes you blink, and when you reopen your eyes he’s holding one of his black, shining sickles. 

“Just the sickles,” he adds. “If I could make food appear out of thin air like some kind of fucking genie I wouldn’t be letting you waste our time in shitty human marketplaces trying to find something even remotely consumable for you.” 

“What’s even the point of being a god if you can’t make food come out of nowhere?” you complain. Karkat rolls his eyes at you and you shift your gaze back to the weapon in his hand, gleaming in the dim light of your small fire. “Do all of y’all get special goth weapons or is that privilege reserved for Death’s people?” 

“We all get them eventually,” he says with a sneer at your wording. “Most of the gods have never had to use their weapons to actually defend themselves, but they have them anyways. It’s a status thing.” 

“Huh,” you voice. Karkat hands you the sickle like he’s sick of you staring at it and you examine it with careful fingers. It’s lighter than you thought it’d be, and you can nearly see your reflection in the clear, well-made curve of the blade. 

“Better than any of the human-made weapons around here,” Karkat gloats, with an air of pride in his voice that doesn’t usually sound so genuine when he’s debasing humans. “Had them for centuries. Not a scratch on them.” 

“Hm.” You stare into the hammered metal, and wonder why the weapon feels so familiar in your hands. “You said it was a status thing?” 

“Yeah?” 

“No offense dude, but like…” You look away from the sickle to get back to Karkat’s face. “Didn’t you say a million times a while back that you’re like… a glorified secretary?” 

“Unfortunately that’s still the case,” he says, grimacing. “The sickles were my dad’s. I just inherited them.” 

“Oh.” The tone in his voice is unquestionably guarded and you can tell from the stiff set of his shoulders that this isn’t something you should push. You hand the cool metal blade back to him and ask, “So what’s it made out of it? Never seen material like that around here.” 

“Skaian gold,” he answers, taking his own time to admire his weapon.

“Gold?” you repeat. “That thing you constantly say you and your god pals have no need for?” 

“Like most things from this planet, _earth_ gold is patently useless,” he says, “but Skaian gold is world’s better.” 

“Oh?” 

“Not only is it stronger and sharper, but it’s also extremely rare.” Karkat stares into the blade, and you can see his red eyes reflected in the metal. “I could find a lifetime’s worth of gold on this planet with very little effort, but these weapons take centuries to forge, to the point where only a dozen or so even exist.”

You hum at this, and find your eyes drifting from Karkat’s weapon to the two curved, golden horns hiding in his wild hair. He follows the movement and then gives you a raised eyebrow, making you voice your question out loud.

“So, like-”

“They’re different,” he says. “If all of us had the most coveted material in Skaia growing from our heads we’d be slaughtering each other left and right to get ahold of it, nevermind the annoying hierarchy that would likely arise from something as daft and meaningless as horn size.” 

You chuckle at this. “Where’s it come from, then?” 

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. He looks off to the side for a moment as if to try and remember, but then just shrugs and rolls his eyes. “There’s a lot of different theories. I’ve heard people say that the remnants of the First Guardians took a few thousand years to compress into gold, other people insisting that this is all some kind of deranged treasure hunt left for us by Calliope to keep us from killing each other. No one actually has any idea.” 

“I’d guess the second one,” you supply. “Y’all do like killing each other.” 

Karkat laughs a little, but it’s too sour to be genuine. “No shit.” 

You both stare at the single sickle for a while longer, Karkat turning it over in his hands while you search for his face in its reflection. Your own sword comes to mind - strapped heavy to your back and streaked with yellow blood - and when Karkat eventually sends the blade back to wherever it comes from, the burst of light staining the inside of your eyes, a thought comes to you. 

“Is it always that color?” you ask. When Karkat tilts his head at you, you add, “The ‘gold.’ Is it always dark like that?” 

“Forging Skaian gold into a useable weapon involves extremely high temperatures,” he explains. “The heat necessary would be impossible to replicate on earth, but the closest equivalent you have would probably be launching it directly into the sun; that kind of heat warps the color in exchange for being able to shape it into any kind of armament the user desires. The same thing happens with earth metals, right?” 

“Yeah, just… not that dramatically.” 

“Of course not,” Karkat agrees. “If gods are anything, it’s dramatic.” 

“No kidding.” You unstrap your sword, the weapon suddenly much too heavy, and stretch your arms above your head. “I mean,” you continue, “you guys are really out here scavenging around Skaia for ancient First Guardian debris just to spend centuries making weapons that you’re not even gonna use? If that’s not the definition of dramatic unnecessary opulence then I don’t know what is.” 

“That’s Skaia for you,” Karkat says with an air of disdain in his voice. “Now hurry up and go to sleep, we’re gonna have to be up early tomorrow to make up for the time we lost today.” 

“Not my fault that _someone_ decided to wander ass first into the domain of a super angry bicyclops,” you point out. 

“And your brilliant idea to keep walking through the rain until your fragile human body gave into hypothermia would’ve been better how?” 

You look at him. He gives you a self-satisfied smile. 

“Okay, goodnight,” you say, and hear him snort behind you when you lie down to sleep. 

It takes you a while to get comfortable. The sounds of the crackling fire and Karkat flipping idly through his book try their best to lull you to sleep, but something keeps preventing you from drifting off fully. You think maybe it’s the thought of the fight from earlier, of the injured bicyclops dragging itself back into its cave to tend to its wounds, that’s keeping you awake. But every time you close your eyes you just see your sword, and the memory of your brother first handing it to you when you were a child sits deep inside your head. 

You don’t know when you manage to fall asleep, but when Karkat wakes you up sometime in the early morning the first thing you notice is that the yellow blood that had stained your sword the day before has disappeared entirely. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hewwo thank u all for being lovely to me as always, im feeling a bit better this week but still Not Great so we'll see how stuff goes i guess
> 
> this chapter was fun but writing fight scenes is hard. im not a fight scene author im a kiss scene author. we're gonna have to wait a few thousand more words for that though
> 
> anyways thanks again u guys! hope everyone is staying safe <3 
> 
> later ✌


	8. Chapter 8

It’s been a long time since you’ve dreamed about Rose. Despite her taking up most of the space in your brain since the day of her death, sometime in the last few years you’d developed the ability to shut off the guilty part of your subconscious for a few moments, at least while you were sleeping. It was the only way you could get any rest, the only time in which images of your dead sister weren’t pervading your every thought. 

You didn’t dream of her during your entire pilgrimage to Alternia, you hardly dreamt at all, and you can’t pinpoint what’s different now, why her visage has made such a sudden reappearance almost every night. Maybe it’s that you’re closer to bringing her back than you’ve ever been, only a couple months away from reaching the Copper District; maybe the long, empty fields of the mid-southern plains have given your brain room to manifest her image just to fill the vast expanse that’s become your daily environment; or maybe it’s because you first met her around this time, thirteen years ago almost to the day, and you just… miss her. 

Most of the dreams are abstract, confusing save for a vague sense of longing and discomfort, but one night your dream is unsettlingly realistic. 

You find yourself in a bedroom - a room you’re certain you’ve never seen before - and staring at the back of a young girl. You instantly know that it’s Rose; from the close cut blonde hair, to the deep tan skin, to the way she holds herself so easily even as a child, it all screams _Rose_. 

She doesn’t notice you at first, but when she eventually turns around you’re shocked at how young she is. She can’t be older than eleven years old, cheeks still plump and pink with youth, and she regards you with such little interest that you’re nearly offended. 

“Oh,” she says, voice high-pitched and tinged with the know-it-all attitude she always carried around as a kid. “Who are you?” 

“Uh.” Your voice cracks and you feel yourself starting to choke up. It’s been so long since you’ve heard her voice, since you’ve seen her face, and she feels so _real_ , you can hardly - “It’s... Dave.” 

When she raises an eyebrow you add, “Strider,” and resist the urge to stick your hand out for an introductory shake. 

“So, Dave Strider,” she starts, giving you a onceover. “Is there a reason you’ve decided to manifest in the middle of my room while my back was turned? I’m sure you have a good reason, but something about a grown man showing up in a little girl’s bedroom unprompted just doesn’t sit right with me. Why do you think that is?” 

“Woah,” you say with your hands up. You take a step back and let out an awkward laugh through a throat of tears. “I’m not some kinda freak, y’know, I’m just… I, uh.” 

Her arms cross over her chest. “Yes?” 

You look at her, really look at her, and feel your heart start to ache. There have been days, peppered throughout the last half decade, when you were worried you’d forgotten her face, when you would close your eyes and be unable to recall the shape of her nose, the quirk of her mouth, the exact shade of purple that used to swirl in her eyes. But seeing her now, standing in front of you with her eyebrow raised like she’s a school teacher about to reprimand you, she’s exactly as you remember. 

“I’m your brother,” you finally say. 

“I don’t have any siblings.” So matter of fact. So confident. But then her eyes drift over your form, likely taking note of your noticeably similar characteristics, and when she looks back up at you she doesn’t seem quite so sure. 

“I’m your brother,” you repeat, feeling your hands start to shake. You cross your arms to make them stop, but it doesn’t help. “I know that probably means fuck all to you right now, but just trust me on this, alright?” 

“Hm.” Her eyes flick down to the floor, thinking, then back up to you to flit across your face. “You’re not the first person to appear to me in this fashion-” 

“I know,” you say. “You used to tell me about your _visions_ or whatever all the time, as if any of it ever made any fucking sense-” 

“ _Used to_?” she interrupts. 

You swallow, and feel your heart start to pound. You have to remind yourself that this isn’t real; none of this is real, and you’re under no obligation to explain to the phantom of your baby sister that she’s going to die in a decade’s time. There’s no reason to feel so guilty, there’s no need to explain yourself. You look at Rose and she looks back, eyes unfocused as if staring right through you, and thankfully the silence only pervades the space between you for a moment. 

“Regardless,” she finally says, tone shifting away from accusatory, “the people who appear to me are rarely this vivid.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yes.” She uncrosses her arms and considers you with slightly less malice. “I’m inclined to believe that the sources of my powers have presented you in such a way because you’re of some sort of importance to me. Does that seem right?” 

You shrug, uncomfortable. “I mean, yeah? Like I guess?” 

“A long-lost brother appearing out of nowhere just to stumble through an awkward introduction and declare a baseless familial relation to me while providing absolutely no proof or explanation,” she muses. “I can only assume that the denizens who have gifted me my heightened perception consider you to be a significant player in the upcoming circumstances of my adolescence, otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered to bring you here at all. You should be flattered.” 

You huff out a laugh. “Yeah, makes total sense,” you joke. 

“Dave Strider, you said?” she asks. 

You clear your throat and answer in the affirmative, after which Rose pauses to grab a pencil and a notebook. She flips open a leatherbound book to a random page, filled with the pointed script of a language you don’t recognize, and scrawls your name into the top right corner to keep for later. 

“You’ll be hearing from me soon, then, Dave,” she assures you. 

“Yeah…” You bite the inside of your cheek as a memory surfaces to the front of your brain. “Hey, uh, just a heads up, if you send a letter or something, you know, I might not be like super amicable right off the bat.” 

“Oh?” 

“I was a little bit of a shithead at that age is all,” you recall. “Like, it wasn’t might fault, I just wasn’t raised real great, but yeah just… give me a chance, I guess. I mellow out eventually.” 

Rose nods and begins to speak, but you have trouble hearing her. She sounds far away and obscured suddenly, as if speaking through water, and soon the outlines of her form start to blur until you can hardly see her. You try to explain further, to implore her to keep reaching out to your younger self even if he resists, but your voice will no longer reach her. You can feel yourself start to pull away from whatever fabricated reality you’ve woven for yourself, despite how much you long to stay, and soon the edges of your vision start to go black. 

The last sound you can make out before you awaken is Rose saying, with the clear lilt of a smile in her tone, “Talk to you soon.”

* * *

You wake up with tears on your cheeks. It’s early morning, the sun barely risen, and sometime during the night you seem to have massively tangled yourself in both your bedroll and the tarp you’d put under it. It takes you far too long to dislodge yourself from the twisted fabric, shaking hands not making it very easy, and you feel like you’re on the verge of complete panic by the time you’re free from your confines. You lie on top of your wrinkled bedroll and take a deep breath, try to remember exactly where you are - 

“Are you quite finished?” comes Karkat’s voice from beside you. You jump half out of your skin at the sound, having been so preoccupied with ridding yourself of your entanglements that you didn’t even notice him lying next to you. “Here I am trying to engage in the deeply complicated human activity of nighttime hibernation - _at your suggestion,_ mind you - and you have the complete audacity to wrestle around in your sleeping cocoon in the early hours of the morning as if some sort of invisible specter was attempting to pull you down to Derse and you had to physically fight them off lest your soft, fleshy body become a punching bag for the Midnight Crew for the rest of eternity - _are you crying?_ ” 

You blink a few times and feel yourself laugh, if only out of confusion. Karkat’s words are a bit too much to process in combination with the strange dream you’ve just had, and you find yourself having a lot of trouble figuring out where you are, _when_ you are. More tears fall and you make sure to wipe them all away, though you can’t help sniffling like a small child when Karkat implores if you’re alright. 

“Fuck, okay,” Karkat continues, sitting up with you. “Are you… hurt? Is fucking around in your bedroll like you’re being attacked by a wild animal some kind of extremely important and ritualistic human behavior that I just wasn’t aware of? God, that’d be so fucking typical, wouldn’t it? You people turn all sorts of banal shit into goddamn sacraments just because you have nothing better to do with your lives, but listen, if you wanna do weird shit then who am I to tell you you can’t? What fucking authority do I have to say that-” 

“Dude,” you interrupt. You scrub more tears off your face and blink a few times so you can see him properly; his expression is miserably concerned. “It’s fine. I just… had a bad dream.” 

“Oh.” Karkat blinks, and you wonder if gods have dreams, nightmares. “Are you alright? I can-”

“I’m fine,” you repeat stubbornly. You stand up, straighten out your sleep wrinkled clothes and start packing up your things. “Let’s just get going.” 

Karkat opens his mouth like he’s going to argue but seems to think better of it and just nods instead. He tamps out the last embers of your small fire while you gather your bedroll and your bag, restrapping your sword to your back with a small sigh. Your hands are still shaking and you feel like you hardly slept at all; you’re already completely sapped of energy and you haven’t even started travelling for the day. You’re not looking forward to the next few hours of dragging your ass through an empty field. 

You start your regular trek headed due north and try to count your steps along the way to distract yourself, to keep your mind from wandering to places you’d rather not go. Karkat is comfortably bitching about something alongside you, but you can’t really hear him; his voice keeps running into itself until it’s little more than white noise streaming endlessly between your ears. You guess you prefer the odd sound over complete silence, but it does little to ease your shot nerves. 

You count your steps (756, 757, 758…), and you count the number of times Karkat says fuck while he’s talking (14… 15, 16… 17…), and you count how many bugs you have to continuously swat away from the exposed skin around your ankles (6 - fuck, 7…). It works, for a little while, but you’re only able to distract yourself for so long before you ultimately feel your thoughts pull themselves into a sharp point, and they’re incessantly prickling at the front of your mind by the time Karkat forces you to break for lunch. 

“This is the quietest I think I’ve heard you since we started this whole shitty endeavor,” he pipes up, tone biting but equally cautious. “You’re not sick are you? Dying? You humans have such needlessly complicated biology that I’d be completely useless if you were to suffer some sort of major injury or illness this far away from a competent doctor.” 

You shovel a handful of heavily salted almonds in your mouth around a noncommittal shrug. “Not sick,” you assure him after a moment. “Not dying. I mean like, maybe in the existential ‘we’re all dying’ kind of way but… it’s whatever, I’m fine.” 

Karkat doesn’t seem satisfied with your answer, giving you a skeptical onceover. “Really?” he asks. He crosses his arms and sits on the ground next to you with a sigh. “Dave, maybe _you’re_ under the impression that you’re some kind of master of stoicism and that your face is an impenetrable fortress of disinterested expressions and pursed lips and quasi-indifferent eyebrow raises, but I’ve spent the last two months watching you wear every emotion you have directly on your sleeve like a bedazzled embellishment to proudly wave around for everyone to see and I’m not buying this ‘I’m fine’ bullshit for a second.”

“ _Okay_ , goddamn.” You guess years without bro around has made you soft; you’re no good at hiding your emotions behind walls of irony and detached jokes anymore. “You know dude, you can show genuine concern for a human without dragging them to Derse and back first, like was that really necessary? Is that some kinda god thing and I’ve just been hella culturally insensitive this whole time? Maybe next time you trip and fall over a leaf or something I’ll call you a rude name and spit on you before bothering to help you up, as per the Alternian custom you just so gracefully demonstrated for me. Come on, man.” 

“Maybe you wouldn’t be so upset if I wasn’t right,” Karkat points out, tone irritatingly smug. 

“Wow, dude, I’m fuckin’ hurt,” you claim with an unnecessarily dramatic inflection. “I thought we were finally starting to bond, you know, just two guys on the road for a couple months being one with nature and all, and then you go and break down one of my major character flaws with as much effort as it takes to ball up a piece of paper. You crumpled that shit up like it was nothin’, tossed it in the trash and landed it square in the motherfucking bin, and now that facet of my personality is sitting in the garbage with the rest of my issues, it’s hanging out all cozy between my dislike of most dairy products and my fear of commitment-”

“Ah! Don’t do that,” Karkat interrupts with a finger in the air. 

“Don’t do _what_ , man, call you out on your frankly rank behavior or-” 

“No,” he repeats, “don’t do that thing you do where you start rambling about pointless shit in a poor attempt to make me forget about the thing I brought up, because it’s still up, Dave! It won’t be ‘brought down’ for a while, it’s just going to hover over us like an awkward, looming harbinger of the conversation you are definitely trying to avoid and the conversation we are _definitely_ going to have, whether you like it or not.” 

“I-”

“Despite the fact that my waking seconds are decreasing these days, I still have to spend every fucking one of them with you, Dave,” he continues. “If I’m gonna be forced to be so constantly in your presence then you can bet your ass I’m not going to let you pout around all day like a child who’s been denied access to the coveted human cookie jar, and the very least you can do is offer me the courtesy of bothering to explain what your major malfunction is - so what the _fuck_ is your problem?” 

You stare at him with wide eyes, feel yourself take a breath. His expression is wild and irritated, so worried that it makes your stomach curl uncomfortably, and you start to wonder when it was, exactly, that Karkat learned everything there is to know about you. 

You sigh and rub your palms on the knees of your pants, anxious suddenly. You’ve never been one to talk about your feelings out in the open, having been trained to anticipate punishment for it, and even though Rose was able to coax things out of you on occasion you still find yourself having trouble with it. Karkat seems earnest, though, and for some reason the look he’s giving you doesn’t read as pitying, but rather understanding. 

“I don’t know, dude,” you say. You pick at your nails and avoid meeting Karkat’s eye. “I just… miss my sister, is all.” 

He hums. “You know, you hardly ever bring her up,” he points out. “This whole expedition is about her, you’re doing all of this _for her,_ and I don’t even know anything about her beyond her name.” 

“Yeah, ‘cause I didn’t wanna do _this_ ,” you say with a wide gesture toward your whole body; you can already feel your eyes welling with tears again, and your hands have started to shake with the effort of holding them back. “I can hardly talk about her without losing my whole entire shit and that’s not helpful or productive, you know?” 

“Is there something significant about today?” he asks, a bit hesitant to push you. “You’ve never acted like this before-”

“It’s the day we met,” you’re able to say. “Or, kind of, it’s this week I’m pretty sure, I don’t know. It _feels_ like today.” 

Karkat’s eyebrows knit together. “You didn’t grow up together?” 

“Oh.” You really haven’t said shit to Karkat about Rose, have you? “No, we didn’t.” 

“That’s… unusual,” he parses, though it sounds like a question, unsure. 

“Yeah, good job,” you jab. “Most people who came from the same parents normally, like, live together and stuff. But shit wasn’t normal for us, so.” 

He doesn’t react to your defensive tone, instead raising a pierced eyebrow in thought. “How old were you, then?” he asks. “When you met?” 

“Thirteen.” Half your lifetime, more than a decade, before meeting Rose. You didn’t even know what you were missing. “She started sending me letters a few years before, said she found me through some wacked out visions or some shit-”

“ _Visions?_ ” 

“That’s what she said, man, fuck if she ever bothered to explain it any more than that.” You roll your eyes, maybe to feign annoyance as if Rose was somewhere nearby, ready to call you on your sincerity. “That’s the thing with Rose, dude, she can’t be assed to explain shit beyond some kind of cryptic metaphor or whatever. Like, I never got a straight answer out of her about how the hell she managed to find me, but at this point I’m pretty sure she just spent a long fucking time in the library and found some old records with my name in them or something, maybe got it out of her mom somehow, I dunno.” 

“To claim that she was clairvoyant, though?” He sounds just as confused as you remember being when you got her first letter. 

“Who knows, she was probably doing drugs or some shit,” you concede with a dismissive wave of your hand. “It doesn’t matter, I guess, however the fuck she did it she ended up finding my address. We were sending letters back and forth for a couple years, bein’ penpals and shit, but she lived on the other side of the country and we were kids, right, like we couldn’t just traipse on over to the other’s house. So she made up some kinda elaborate lie about wanting to help the needy and ended up convincing her mom to take a carriage all the way over to the Copper District for a fucked up charity vacation. Don’t ask me how she did it, but she can be real fucking convincing when she wants to be, damn near manipulative honestly.” 

Karkat nods in genuine interest and you feel a poorly constructed dam inside of you start to break, letting all of the things you remember about Rose, all of the things you force yourself not to think about, pour out of your mouth at once. You tell Karkat everything, from you and Rose awkwardly meeting for the first time in person, hiding it from your respect guardians for fear of getting in trouble, to when you made your initial plans to live together, to shed yourselves of your respective former households in favor of making a better one. You talk about the house you kept together, how Rose gave up a life of relative ease and privilege in the Cerulean District just to come stay with you, and how you forced yourselves not to become the people who raised you. Karkat listens the entire time, and doesn’t interrupt except to ask the occasional question, even when you start to cry. 

You leave a few things out. You don’t mention the fact that you had to kill your brother just to get out from under his thumb, and you don’t mention how Rose’s mother came to a similar, unfortunate fate, or how you can’t bring yourself to feel sorry about any of it. You don’t talk about how you had started to argue in the last months of Rose’s life, when she decided to more heavily involve herself in the occult and everything that came with it. You don’t talk about how she died, or the several long, lonely years you spent by yourself afterwords. You try to keep what you tell Karkat about Rose on the more positive side, for his sake and yours, but in the end you find yourself coming back around to - 

“I don’t even know if this will work,” you conclude with a heavy sigh, some time later. You wipe residual tears off your cheeks and feel your face redden as you realize how long you’ve been talking, and crying. “This is my last fucking chance and if it doesn’t work, I won’t-” 

“It’ll work,” Karkat assures, with more confidence than you’ve ever seen him have about the whole situation. “It has to, I mean, you came all this fucking way! You spent _how long_ trying to get to Alternia? And now it’s gonna take us months to get you all the way back, this is such a quintessential hero’s journey that once Skaia gets a whiff of it they’ll bring your sister back and any other long-dead ancestor you wanna dig up along the way. They all have such huge hard-ons for watching humans suffer through the mechanisms they designed that I’m sure they’ll piss themselves in delight to hear that you spent however many fucking years trying to revive your sister. They eat that shit up, Dave, your story is basically a three-course meal for them and bringing her back is the dessert.” 

You must not look convinced, because Karkat’s expression shifts to a looser countenance and he schools his words away from the exaggerated and more towards something genuine. 

“We’ll get her back,” he says, a gentle palm coming to rest on your knee, comfortably warm. “I… I promise.” 

You don’t usually like when people make promises you’re sure they can’t keep, but when you meet Karkat’s eyes you think maybe, just this once, you’ll let yourself believe him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how many italics can i use in one chapter??? a lot apparently! also wow can u believe im putting backstory and exposition in this shit? seriously remarkable
> 
> you all are so lovely and kind to me and i hope youre all enjoying this so far! we're catching up to what i have completed in my wip (most of this was prewritten) so things might get staggered here in a bit, but.... what can u do lol 
> 
> thanks as always and comments are super appreciated!
> 
> later ✌


	9. Interlude

_ To Dave Strider, Copper District, Northernmost Province: _

_ I have spent several hours attempting to write the first sentences of this letter, but to no avail. I find myself questioning my intent, my wording, wondering if the task ahead is simply too difficult to proceed with, if I should tear up my writing paper, reseat my pen in its inkwell, and give up entirely. Looking at them now, I’m unsure what I find particularly problematic about my first drafts. Are they too straightforward? Too bland? Or perhaps the opposite - have I steeped them too heavily in overly saturated prose in an attempt to diminish the absolute absurdity of the subject matter I’ve tried to hide beneath unnecessary alliteration and bathos? Have one too many clunky, metaphorical sentences made the original meaning of my correspondence irritatingly abstruse? Could a child ever possibly parse my meaning in this message, or have I made the mistake of pulling increasingly thicker wool over the eyes of my correspondent until he may no longer be able to see my words, nevermind explicate any understanding from them? I do not know.  _

_ Regardless, I seem to have settled on this version of my letter, whether I meant to or not. And assuming you’ve made it this far, I can only assure you that the following paragraphs will be as clear-cut and uncomplicated as possible, barring none of the confusing structure and overly-analytical self-reflective meta of the introduction in order to best explain the purpose of this letter to you. Let us get into it, then.  _

_ The origins of Skaia are almost wholly unknown. There are theories, yes - ancient denizens older than time itself manipulating and warping the penetrating darkness of the empty universe into something malleable and life-giving; an enormous explosion with an unknown cause erupting in the center of nothing to create everything; a child of an unfamiliar, alien race playing a dangerous game that resulted in the world we now inhabit - but no one actually  _ knows _. Ask a minor deity and they will tell you they were created by the hands of the elder gods. Ask an elder god and they’ll tell you they simply appeared one day, seemingly out of nowhere and from nothing, full formed. Ask Calliope and she will kill you where you stand without a second thought. Everyone has their own idea, but none of it actually matters.  _

_ I cannot tell you where Skaia came from. I cannot tell you who felt it necessary to create a race of godlike beings to rule over humans. I cannot tell you the origins of Calliope, or her brother Caliborn, or why they exist, or who created them, or what any of this means. What I can tell you, is that the powers that control all of the above, the beings that gave rise to the gods and the planets and the rhythms of life and death, are the same entities that have gifted me divine jurisdiction over the element of foresight. What I mean to say is - I can see the future, and you’re in it.  _

_Specifically, you are in_ my _future, and I am in yours. Whether or not you wish to be a part of my life is no longer relevant - as far as Skaia is concerned, we’re already deeply intertwined in regards to things like fate and destiny and providence, and the typical heroic fantasy bullshit we’ve been trained to find admirable our whole lives. Our story is not up to us. It never has been._

_ Maybe this is disturbing news to you. You wouldn’t be the first person to succumb to despair upon finding out that your life is essentially meaningless, that you’ve always been destined to live it in a specific way, as deigned appropriate and righteous by a source of power you will never know or understand. But there is freedom in being told nothing matters, isn’t there? It’s always been out of your hands, from the circumstances of your birth to the choices and mistakes you’ve made and will continue to make throughout your life. Skaia has chosen you to exist in a specific way, for a specific amount of time, amongst specific people, until death ultimately comes for you like it will for all of us who were unfortunate enough to be born mortal. This is the way things are, and I encourage you to accept it sooner rather than later.  _

_ You can, of course, resist if you’d like - write off my letter as nothing more than the confused ramblings of someone deep in the clutches of drugs, or alcohol, or desperation, disregard my words as a hoax or a poor attempt to drain you of money. But Skaia and all of its mechanisms are nothing if not remarkably stubborn. It is inevitable that we will, eventually, find each other, and allow Skaia’s predetermined arcs to play out in front of our very eyes. Until then, you are welcome to ignore this message, to forget I ever existed and assume this whole thing is a farce that’s not worth your time or effort to bother understanding. If you do choose to do this, however, please at least do me the favor of acting surprised when we inexorably find each other again.  _

_ I believe that is all I need to say, Dave. I hope you’ll consider replying to me, if only to save us both the trouble of having to navigate through your disbelief at a later time. The journey we are meant to go on has already started, and you can no longer get off the boat; it’s already pulled out of the harbor and we are too far from land to turn back. The way I see it, you really only have two options - give yourself up to the wind blowing in our sails and the scent of seawater surrounding us, or jump overboard. It’s up to you.  _

_ Oh, one last thing I should mention before I bid you farewell: I’m your sister. To avoid any confusion, let me make it clear that you told me this yourself, adamantly, several times. Skaia’s inner workings rear their ugly heads again, don’t they?  _

_ I look forward to hearing from you, Dave.  _

__ _ Rose Lalonde _ _   
_ __ _ Cerulean District _ _   
_ __ _ Northeastern Province  _

* * *

_ To Rose Lalonde, Cerulean District, Northeastern Province:  _

_ hey man what the fuck???  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a lil intermission to tide yall over until updates are more regular. when will that be?? we both get to find out at the same time!!! 
> 
> also rose lalonde is such an impossible character to write idk how anyone can get her diction down without having thesaurus.com pulled up in another tab.... queen of long ass words
> 
> hope i did her some kinda justice though, thank u all again for reading and everything! comments are always appreciated <3


	10. Chapter 10

A few weeks into your pass through the plains, you start to find the leftover remnants of long-forgotten parts of humanity. As you turn farther west to avoid the coast, the decomposing vestiges become denser, until every hundred yards or so you and Karkat find yourselves stepping over the empty foundations of old houses, leaving footprints among the sown soil of barren farmland, and coming across squalid, thrown together gravesites with wooden markers that bear no names, or affiliations. 

You’d tried to avoid this part of the country when you’d first gone south, but it had sent you so off course that it delayed your journey by nearly a month. Seeing it now, you’re not sure which outcome you prefer. 

Karkat expresses confusion over the state of the mid-western plains, but when you point out the beating sun that’s been pressing down on you every day, the seemingly random and occasionally torrential rains that flood the area with no warning, and the lack of any significant vegetation as far as you can see, he seems to get the picture. The dilapidated remains of the society that once tried to flourish in the area are just a symptom of the unforgiving environment they chose to settle in, to no fault of their own. It’s impossible to live with weather so unpredictable, with soil that fails to grow anything besides tall, unusable grass, with no patron god to bother intervening in the suffering. 

Karkat’s eyebrows furrow at your explanation, and when you question him he gives you an odd look. “It’s just,” he says with a small shake of his head, “the last time I was here… this place was perfect.” 

“Two hundred years is a long time to be away,” you point out. “Shit happens.” 

He gives you a half-shrug of hesitant agreement, and doesn’t mention it again. 

You continue your voyage as normal, but the mood becomes considerably morose over the next few days. Death has never bothered you in the same way it seems to bother so many other people, but even you start to feel the melancholic atmosphere of the space around you, the way it pinches at your skin as if trying to pull you apart. Passing through so many corroded, rotten fragments of human life starts to affect Karkat, too. The same guy who so constantly undermines human culture, who writes off your people as a cosmic mistake with the same tone as someone making a casual joke, starts having a hard time hiding the tears welling in his eyes when you trudge through your third abandoned home in a row. 

Your conversations plunge. You take less breaks and sleep for fewer hours in an attempt to make it through the area as quickly as possible. You try to set up camp far from any dilapidated structures, but it becomes more and more difficult as you make your way further into the center of the once thriving district. You spend a night staring into the worn away letters of a wooden grave marker bearing the name and age of a child lost to hunger, and promptly stop being able to fall asleep. 

Karkat checks the map more often. Your reserve of fire fuel increases significantly as you start walking throughout the night, avoiding sleep and the nightmares that come with it. You and Karkat walk closer to each other, and stop bothering to pretend like you’re not constantly brushing up against the other’s shoulder. 

After two long weeks of trekking through the depressing landscape, you start to notice the color filter back into your surroundings. Trees spring up around you, birds too small to see sing into the open air, and the force pushing down on your chest lightens substantially. Karkat makes a joke that you laugh at, and his shoulder bumps against yours, on purpose this time. The scent of death doesn’t follow you so ardently, and the hopelessness that came with it starts to ebb away as well. You think of Rose, and what you’ll do when you see her again, and the faceless images of the lost people of the plains dissolve into memories once more. 

And then you come across the temple. 

It seems insignificant at first - just another decaying relic at the edge of a sprawling, dead civilisation - but Karkat’s reaction makes you pause. You’re not sure what he sees in the stained white stone of the crumbling temple, why he stops so suddenly to stare into it as if trying to find something. You look for a critical detail in the collapsing structure, but find only a few still standing pillars, and the statue of a figure looming in the center. Karkat approaches it with the body language of someone expecting to be attacked, though he doesn’t say anything as you come up beside him. 

You can’t pinpoint the likeness of the statue at first. It’s a bit too tall, too eroded for you to get a proper look at the details, but as your eyes drift from stone feet to carved head you start to feel recognition pull at your brain. The figure is an imposing man cloaked in thick robes, one hand pressed to his chest and the other raised with two fingers up in a calm, placating gesture. His face is mostly obscured by a draped hood, but underneath it you can pick out a mouth of sharp teeth. On top of his head, carved in fine detail and still shimmering with flecks of gold, are two small, curved horns. 

“Oh,” you say after a moment. “It’s-” 

“My dad,” Karkat finishes. He’s staring at the statue as well, but more intensely, like he’s trying to find its eyes underneath the stone coverings. “It’s my dad.” 

“Woah.” You glance at him and find the rough similarities between Karkat and the stone structure, wonder how you didn’t make the connection sooner. “Holy shit.” 

“Yeah.” Karkat’s jaw clenches and you see him blink a few times. You want to reach out for him, but you don’t feel like you can. “He was the God of Death. Originally.” 

“I know,” you say, apparently to Karkat’s surprise. He turns to you with a raised eyebrow and you add, for clarification, “I met him once.” 

“You did?” 

“Yeah, you know…” You shrug. “When I killed my brother.”

* * *

You were just a kid, is the thing. You were just a kid, only sixteen, stuck in a situation you didn’t deserve and doing what you could to remove yourself from it. Thinking about it now, you wouldn’t hesitate to kill your brother, and would easily do it again several times over knowing the life you could have without him, but back then you were just… scared. You were terrified, and you were frustrated, and you’d taken to baring your teeth as a means to hide your fear. And you were angry. You were furious. 

So you killed him. And it wasn’t easy. 

Your brother was a force to be reckoned with, and no simple target to take down. You hadn’t even realized you were setting out to kill him until halfway through the fight, when you’d both spilled each other’s blood too many times to count but your heart had yet to calm down from it’s roaring tempo. You didn’t stop, or slow down, or stay on the ground when he put you there, and your brother didn’t let up either. He rarely ever did. 

You don’t even remember the final blow, which specific cut of your sword or pounding of your fist finally did him in. Part of you still thinks maybe he let you win, let his guard drop for just long enough that you’d be able to neutralize him, just to see if you really had it in you. You wouldn’t put it past him, really; it wouldn’t be the first time he’d pushed you to your limits just to prove a point. If anything, he’d been goading you into it for months by then, taunting you with jabs about how you’d never be able to defend yourself if it came down to it, how you were weak and spineless and would never survive the kind of world you’d been forced to live in. Maybe he just had a death wish. Maybe you granted it for him. Maybe you don’t really care. 

Regardless, the battle was brutal, and your body gave into unconsciousness sometime at the end. You remember feeling something against your face, and waking up on the ground some time later to the visage of a man in a black cloak kneeling over the body of your dead brother. A man with grey skin, and golden horns, and a dim light emanating from his very core. He didn’t notice you at first, seemingly preoccupied with your brother’s corpse, until you’d forced a few words out of your chest to form a rattling question.

“Are you taking me to Derse?” 

He’d turned to look at you, and you felt what little breath you had left exit your lungs all at once at the intensity of the red in his eyes. To this day you’ve never seen anything quite like it, except- 

“No, child,” he’d said, voice deep and gentle. He’d approached you with a hand outstretched, and you only managed not to startle at his movements because your body was too exhausted to bother. He knelt beside you, and laid a warm hand on your arm. “I’m not here for you.” 

“Is _he_ going to Derse?” you asked, just to be sure. 

“Oh yes,” the man remarked with a smile. “We have a special place in Derse reserved for shitheads like him, and I imagine he’ll get along with the other people of his ilk down there, like child molesters and people who kick puppies for fun. I’ll spare you the gritty details of what heinous mechanisms are being employed in Derse to torture the abominable motherfuckers that end up down there, but I promise it’s well deserved in this case.” 

You’d started to cry here, and the man frowned at you. 

“I didn’t want to kill him,” you’d warbled. “I didn’t want to.” 

“I know,” he’d assured. “Good people rarely _want_ to kill others. But sometimes you have to, unfortunately.” 

You’d just cried, wiping blood and snot and tears across your face, while Death himself looked on with soft eyes and the tranquil understanding of someone who’s seen this far too many times. 

“It’s not as black and white as some people think,” he’d said in your frightened silence. “Killing someone doesn’t always send you to Derse, it’s not that simple - we make exceptions for this kind of shit more often than you’d think, and you'd have to really fuck up in the meantime to land yourself ass first in hell later on, okay? You’ve got nothing to worry about.” 

You'd sniffled and nodded, unable to form any more words. 

Death hummed, and considered you with kind, brilliant eyes. “I’m sorry this happened to you,” he’d said, one of the only people to ever voice such a thing in your direction. “I can only do so much, but-”

He’d reached out with his other hand then, pressing them both into your forearms. The warmth from his skin had seeped into yours and straight through your whole body, and suddenly the liquid filling your lungs had cleared and the blood flowing from your wounds slowed to a stop. You’d let out a racked sob from your open chest, and it had torn up your throat and into the space around you, clear as day, and dreadfully liberating. 

“I have to take him now,” he’d said, glancing over to your brother’s still body. “You will heal from this, eventually. And I don’t want to see you anywhere near Derse until then.” 

Your vision was obscured with tears as he’d left to crouch over your brother instead. The same gentle touch he’d given you was much more callous as he pressed a hand to your brother’s head, and soon the two of them disappeared into the ground in a motion too quick to perceive, leaving behind little evidence that a fight had occurred at all, except for you.

* * *

“That sounds like him,” Karkat remarks fondly after hearing your recollection, lower eyelids brimming with light pink tears. 

“Yeah, he was pretty cool,” you say. “Kinda talked like you but if you were also, like, a preacher or something? Real calm all the time but somehow still blowing out cuss words every three seconds. Kinda poetic, if you ask me.” 

Karkat laughs, too sullen to ring out in the right key, but there nonetheless. “He’s right, too,” he adds in a wavering tone. “About Derse, your brother; you have to really fuck up to be sent down there.” 

A muscle in your jaw jumps and you feel your heart sutter, but you hold your tongue - that’s a different conversation for a different day. 

“You know, when I first got to the doors,” you say instead, “Sollux mentioned that the Psionic had died, which is why they put him in charge. Did your dad…?” 

You see Karkat tense, lips pursing and fingers clenching into fists. You wonder if maybe you shouldn’t have asked, until you watch the way he stares into the stone face of his father like he so desperately wants to talk to him. You remain silent for a few moments while he seems to steel himself and you mirror his posture in the meantime, craning your neck to gaze up at the larger than life statue. 

“I wasn’t there,” Karkat eventually warbles out, sounding as if the words hurt his throat. “I wasn’t there when it happened. I only heard about it.” 

You hum, just to indicate that you’re listening. You don’t look at Karkat. Death’s hooded eyes pierce into you. 

“It was here, or - near here, I don’t know. But this was his domain, this whole place.” He sniffles, glances to his side at a patch of brown grass. “Humans aren’t meant to live in places like this, but you’re all so fucking stubborn that you did it anyways, and when the people here started dying in droves from how monumentally shitty everything was he decided to step in. Having that many people die, in such excess, constantly, throws everything off balance. The corpse capital was a goddamn mess, everyone was overworked, disputes were through the roof, but no one cared enough to do anything except for him.” 

“He helped them out?” you ask when Karkat goes silent again. “Showed them how to live?” 

“Not how to live,” he corrects. “Just how to not die.” 

You pause at this, and take a closer look around. Maybe the grass isn’t so useless if you find new ways to use it. Maybe the weather is less unpredictable if someone teaches you how to study its patterns. Maybe survival is a little easier if someone is around to lead the way. 

“This place was perfect when I was here last,” he continues, sounding angry suddenly. “It was fucking perfect, Dave. But then-” 

“The plague,” you guess, filling in the blanks. “I know it’s all over the west coast, but I didn’t think it’d gotten here-”

“It _started_ here.” Karkat stares down at the ground and pushes a toe into the dry, rocky soil. “Must’ve been some kind of cosmic karma, or something. My dad worked so hard to save all these fucking people but Calliope or Caliborn or who the fuck ever decided that they had to go, that the goddamn balance of the universe or whatever bullshit depended on thousands of innocent people being killed. Couldn’t even give them the benefit of a quick death, couldn’t have sent a flood or a fire to take them out all at once, no, it had to be a disease that killed you so slowly you couldn’t beg death to come fast enough. All because Skaia had deemed it necessary, or because someone had some kind of petty, personal vendetta against my dad, or because one of the pompous dickheads upstairs had a particularly sharp stick up their ass and decided to take it out on a bunch of random humans who hadn’t done anything wrong.”

You blink. You don’t think you’ve ever seen Karkat so upset about the fate of any human, nevermind ones he had no personal affiliation with. His eyes have ignited with something you normally only get a glimpse of, and when he speaks again it no longer sounds like he’s talking to you. 

“If a plague comes along and kills half your family then of course you’d think Death was responsible, of course you would,” he rants. He’s rolled his sleeves up again, exposing the deep black of his tattoos. They seem to shine in the early afternoon light. “But it wasn’t him. It wasn’t him and I _knew_ it wasn’t him, but how could you blame people for thinking that? He was the physical incarnation of Death Itself, you’d have to have your head up your ass to not blame him for the disease taking out your entire town. Humans are stupid but they’re not that stupid, and whether he was their patron or not they were going to hold him responsible for the thing that was killing them because _he_ was the one taking the bodies when they died. These people had to watch my dad come and take the half-rotten corpses of their loved ones down to Alternia every _fucking_ day and they would’ve been out of their minds if they hadn’t retaliated.” 

He pauses here, and the anger starts to ebb out of him like a knot being unraveled. You see his shoulders sag, the fire in his eyes dimming to a pulsing ember, and when he turns to you it’s with wet cheeks.

“Do you know how hard it is to kill a god, Dave?” 

You blink, stunned, and shake your head no. 

“Very fucking hard,” he answers in your silence. “It takes another extremely powerful god. Or a very determined group of humans.” 

You swallow, and Karkat doesn’t meet your eyes. “They killed him,” you say. Not a question.

“Immortality comes with conditions,” he says in answer. “I could jump off a cliff or dive into a volcano and come back without a scratch. I’ve watched my friends die and regenerate as part of an elaborate game they made up. Sometimes gods get bored and off themselves for shits and giggles, but if their deaths were justified, for whatever reason…” 

“It’s permanent,” you finish. 

Karkat sniffles. “Yeah.” 

It seems final, the last word from Karkat to indicate that he’s beyond talking at this point, and you find yourself not knowing how to comfort him. You both look into the carved stone of Death’s statue, silent save for the sound of the wind blowing through the sparse grass. Karkat cries quietly to himself, and you try not to think too hard about the implications of life and death, of a justified end versus one that's considered null and void, of what cosmic power makes the decision of who lives and dies, and where you fit into that equation. 

“What I don’t understand,” Karkat adds suddenly, breaking you out of your thoughts, “is why he didn’t come back.” 

You open your mouth to muse on the topic, but Karkat interrupts. 

“The plague wasn’t his,” he says. His eyebrows knit together in thought, confusion. “He told me it wasn’t his and I have no reason to not believe him, so if he was killed for something that wasn’t his fault then _why didn’t he come back_?” 

“Karkat-” 

“How is that fair?” The pitch of his voice is peaking oddly, as if he’s barely able to get the words out. Light red tears pool over the edges of his eyelids and streak down his cheeks in colorful rivulets, slipping down his skin with little resistance. “How does that make any sense? Either he lied to me and purposely killed all those people, or they were so thorough in ripping him apart that there wasn’t anything left of him to come back at all! And if that’s the case then why didn’t Skaia do fuck all about it? Why didn’t someone help him? What’s the point of having direct contact with the most powerful beings in the entire fucking universe if none of them even give half a shit about us? What did my dad do to deserve that, what did _I_ do-” 

He cuts off suddenly as a choked sob interrupts his words, and a cold shock through your spine startles you into movement. Karkat falls into your arms as easily as someone who’s done it a thousand times, pressing his face into your shoulder and crying into the fabric of your shirt as you keep him steady with your arms around his waist. 

You have nothing to say, no words of comfort, no calming advice. You don’t know fuck all about gods, or conditional immortality, or the rules of Skaia. You never had a father you loved enough to mourn losing. But you lost your sister, have borne the pain of missing someone and being left helpless to do anything about it. You've dealt with the confusion and the anger, the guilt and all the questions of why, what if, what could I have done - and it hasn't gotten any easier. It's a pain you're all too familiar with, and one you'd never wish on another person.

You run a hand through Karkat's hair as he sobs against your chest. The thin red of his tears soaks into your shirt and begins to tint the white fabric. Over his trembling shoulder you spy fresh flowers, vibrant red and pink, laid carefully by the back corner of the statue's base, nearly out of sight and placed by gentle hands. Karkat cries, and the bright flowers stain the inside of your eyes, and everything is quiet.

* * *

Things are different, after. You’re able to soothe Karkat’s tears and eventually draw him away from the statue, leaving behind the ruins surrounding it and the odd air of the place you’ve found yourselves in, but you only barely let go of him. Grief drapes itself over his shoulders like a heavy blanket, and the only way you can think to remove it is to force your way under it and push it off yourself. 

You take on some of the weight, letting yourself talk about Rose at length for the first time in a while, and the mutual pain you both feel evenly distributes itself over the two of you. It fills in the gaps between your bodies, however small they may become, and eventually shrinks into little more than a thin line separating your hands as you walk side by side, an insubstantial barrier failing to keep your shoulders apart as they drift closer together. 

You’ve never been able to share your grief with anyone else, not in any significant capacity. You don’t think Karkat has either, with the way he so often trips over himself trying to express his pain. In comparison to his long lifespan, the death of his father is an exceptionally fresh trauma to have kept to himself for however many years he managed to do so, and you try your best to pick him up when he stumbles through his feelings, to try and empathize where you can. You start to see him stand up a little straighter after some time, the heavy burden of keeping his emotions hidden beginning to lift, and while you don’t think a few days of feelings jams in the middle of nowhere is going to heal him of his wounds, you think it’s a start. 

He listens to you just as evenly, interjecting when it’s necessary and staying quiet in the same capacity. Speaking about it so clearly for the first time makes your chest swell, and the black, swollen clouds inside of you that have been building up pressure for years finally burst in an extraordinary, terrifying storm. Everything pours out of you like the floods of a terrible deluge, and while it feels damaging on the way out - destructive and angry and violent - the aftermath is entirely cleansing. 

Karkat’s tears turn to smiles when reminiscing about his father. A great man, you learn quickly, who was hard pressed to “let the self-serving, autocratic shitstains upstairs tell him what to do.” The more Karkat talks about him the more you see the resemblance, from the loud dislike of the mere concept of authority to the kind and compassionate temperment hidden beneath a prickly, defensive veneer. You don’t know a whole lot about god birth or where the divine definition of a parent falls in line with your own ideas, but from what you can tell it doesn’t seem like the apple falls very far from the tree. 

You have an easier time talking about Rose, too. It’s with some hesitancy, the looming conclusion of your years-long journey slowly emerging just over the horizon, but it’s a stark difference from how things have been for the last few years. It makes a small, precarious bead of hope flare up inside you, and for once you’re not so determined to snuff it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> karkats got lore yall thats fun, also wow how many fucking line breaks can i include in one chapter??? Several. 
> 
> we're picking speed here yall i promise the plot will actually happen more soon kashdakjshd also updates should be semi-regular for a bit but everything still sucks shit just in general so i cant guarantee that! we'll get there in the end though 
> 
> also hey while im here im gonna plug [my tumblr](http://www.acedavestrider.tumblr.com) again if anyone wants to chat or whatever. appreciate you guys as always <3


	11. Chapter 11

The map refuses to change, no matter how hard you look at it. Its edges have started to curl and turn brown from how many times you and Karkat have handled it, but the topography remains the same - cities, followed by open plains, then a mountain range and a river separating you from your home. On your way to Alternia you were able to skirt around the mountain along the west coast, but now an apparently devastating plague is in your way. Going through the mountains is out of the question; it would take triple the amount of time just to traverse the landscape during the day, and the frigid temperatures at night would probably be enough to kill you even with Karkat’s godly body heat to keep you warm. The far eastern coast is under water and practically impassible, which means if you want to make it home - 

“We’re gonna have to cross the river,” you announce.

Karkat looks up from where he’s sitting in the grass, surrounded by several jars of the food you’d packed. Around a mouthful of dried berries he asks, “Are you dumb?” 

“Dude-” 

“No, listen, I think you’re starting to lose it,” he continues. “Maybe the endless expanse of tall grass and shit all nothing is starting to fuck with your delicate human perception of reality. I know the prairie madness is getting to you, but I can assure you that our best course of action is decidedly _not_ to cross the largest fucking river in the country during flooding season.” 

“Flooding season’s not for another couple weeks-” 

“Still!” he counters. He shoves another handful of dried fruit into his mouth and makes little effort to keep it there as he speaks. “It’s miles wide and will flood at the mere mention of a light drizzle and you think it’s a good idea to try and cross it a week before it’s due to put a quarter of the land mass under water? I was starting to think you might’ve had some brain cells rattling around in your head but it sounds like you have as little sense of self-preservation as every other dimwitted human on this planet.” 

You flip the map around to show him your options, finger pointed squarely at the area in question. “Okay, man, you pick then,” you suggest. “You wanna waste three more weeks trying to hike through an enormous mountain range, or try swimming our way through the eastern shore? Or, hey, how about we pop on over to the west coast where the biggest plague in human history is wiping out people in droves? Your choice!” 

Karkat scowls at this and snatches the map away from you to take a closer look at it. He’s quiet for a moment, realizing your options are too limited to bother arguing about, and then looks up at you with narrowed eyes. 

“The biggest plague in human history happened four hundred years before I was born,” he says. “This is probably the third biggest-” 

“So we’re crossing the river?” you interrupt. 

Karkat sighs and hands you the map to fold, then starts gathering up all the food jars he’d been combing through. “Fine,” he agrees, albeit begrudgingly. “I hope the smug satisfaction of forcing my hand is worth risking your life over. The mountains would be infinitely safer-”

“It’d take too long,” you say. There’s a pause where Karkat looks at you, and you add, “I’m tired of waiting. I just… I need to see her again.” 

If anything, talking about Rose in the last few days has just reinvigorated the determination you’d had when you originally set out to find her. It’s ebbed and flowed in the long months of your journey, drifting back and forth from unbridled tenacity to scared hesitance, but now you finally feel close enough to be hopeful and you want little more than to keep pushing forward until you reach the end. Karkat seems to understand this, and gives you a measured nod. 

“If you fall into the river and get pneumonia don’t think I won’t say ‘I told you so,’” he says, only half joking. 

“I’ll give you permission for one ‘I told you so’ in the unlikely event that that happens,” you say. “It’s gonna be fine, dude, it’ll take us a couple days to get there and then like an hour to cross it. Real low stakes, if you ask me.” 

He just sighs and gives up his argument, instead taking the time to relay his thoughts on the various dried fruits he just finished trying. You listen while you pack up, and through the first few miles of your walk to the river. Apparently, dried apricots are the superior form of dehydrated fruit, while raisins are an experience that Karkat “wouldn’t even submit the people of Derse to.” You don’t have any particularly strong feelings about raisins, or any other preserved fruit for that matter, but you like hearing about Karkat’s thoughts. 

He rambles to you about human food with the same kind of ranting passion that you’ve seen him have when talking about the greater failures of the Skaia/Alternia hierarchy. From what you can tell, Karkat doesn’t seem to have an in-between; he’s either heated in his fervent like or dislike of something, or he is remarkably uninvolved and disinterested. You once tried to engage him in a conversation about your base knowledge of human politics, which he shut down as frivolous nonsense, only to later have an enthusiastic discussion with you about the various merits of the quintessential romantic love triangle that is so constantly used as a trope in human fiction novels. You don’t know what part of his mind decides what he’s going to find important and what he dismisses as irrelevant, but you find it irritatingly charming. 

There are a lot of things about Karkat that you find charming. It’s something you’ve only barely bothered to avoid, and the more time you spend with him the less you feel like it’s something you need to hide. He’s certainly caught you staring at him enough times to realize it’s not entirely friendly, and you doubt he thinks you’ve missed the way his eyes linger on you a little too long sometimes. It’s not exactly something you’re focused on dealing with right now - you have bigger goals in mind - but maybe, after all this is over… 

“Think you’ll go back to Alternia?” you ask him one day. “Once we get her back?” 

The riverbank is in sight, but still several miles away. It’s a point in the distance you focus on with ardent determination, if only so you don’t have to look Karkat in the eyes. 

“I… guess?” he tries. He might glance over at you, but you can’t be sure. “Where else would I go?” 

“I dunno.” You shrug. “I was just thinking, like… The door to Alternia changes all the damn time and is really fucking hard to find, so if you went back I just… probably wouldn’t be able to find you again.” 

Karkat hums, and you feel him misstep beside you like he wants to stop walking but then thinks better of it. “Well _I’d_ be able to find _you_ ,” he supplies after a moment. “I’ve become so intimately familiar with your specific and occasionally putrid scent that it would be so easy to track you down, you may as well have a giant, flashing beacon attached to you. Nevermind the immeasurable aura of smugness and emotional repression you carry around with you, I’m surprised it hasn’t started to affect the atmosphere here. You’re probably partially responsible for all the shitty weather around here because the annoyingly dense energy you shit out constantly has blown a hole in the ozone. It would be impossible _not_ to find you, and the effort of avoiding you would probably give me a migraine or significantly shorten my lifespan.” 

You laugh unexpectedly, and a prickle starts to warm the inside of your chest. “You’ll visit, then?” you ask, just to be sure. “You have to pinkie promise, if that’s the case.” 

“Yeah, I’ll visit,” he submits eventually. “But I’m not going to engage in your childish human agreement ritual-”

“Nah, you gotta,” you say. “It’s the law.” 

Karkat does stop walking then, and gives you a look like maybe he believes pinkie promises are actually protected by the human legal system. When you grin at him he rolls his eyes and sticks out his pinkie, allowing you to curl your own around it for only a moment before pulling away, cheeks noticeably pink. 

“And hey,” you add. “Bringing someone back to life is kind of a big fucking deal. Feel like it’d be reasonable enough to let you stay with us for a bit, afterwords. If it’d be too much of a pain to go back and forth to Alternia all the time, I mean.” 

You start walking again, too afraid to see Karkat’s expression upon hearing you invite him to live with you, but he stays rooted to his spot for a few seconds. He eventually catches up with you, though he doesn’t give you an answer for a long while. You start to assume it’s a no, until he pipes up some time later. 

“That would be nice,” he says, quiet like he doesn’t want to frighten you. 

You smile at him, and he only avoids your eyes for a second before smiling back.

* * *

“Alright, man, here we are.” 

The terrain has been shifting for several miles, becoming more lush and dense, the soil below more and more arable the closer you got to the riverbank, and now the river itself stretches before you, calm and deep blue in the late afternoon sunlight. You’ve never seen it in person until now, never had a reason to, and it’s bigger than you thought it’d be. The current is slow and lazy, the water so clear you can almost see straight to the bottom. Large aqueducts run nearby, bringing water and irrigation to towns all over the northern half of the country, and somewhere in the distance you can see animals grazing on the rich vegetation, the first you’ve seen in a long time. 

There’s a bridge a few hundred yards down the riverbank, but even from your vantage point you can tell it’s not in great shape. Years of flooding have rotted portions of the wooden structure, and as the river isn’t technically part of any specific municipality you don’t imagine anyone has been around to maintain it. It’s still standing, though, built tall to account for the changing water levels, and you don’t doubt it’ll be able to hold the weight of a couple people. 

“Let’s get going,” you say to Karkat, and start heading for the bridge. 

“Wait,” he says, a hand on your arm. “It’ll be dark soon, maybe we should camp here-”

“Soon?” you repeat. You look up at the sun overhead, run some numbers. “Look, if we start now, we can be across before nightfall. Quit dicking around.” 

“I don’t want to be traversing that deathtrap of a bridge in pitch blackness,” he argues. “I just know you’re going to step into a comically large hole in the structure that’s obscured by the darkness and plummet to your near death into the water below.” 

“Okay, if anyone’s gonna trip and fall over something it’s gonna be _you_ -”

“ _I’m_ not the one whose species is notoriously bad at seeing in the dark!” 

You sigh and glance at the sky again. It’ll take you two hours tops to get across, and it’ll be well before nightfall by then. You have no idea what Karkat’s so nervous about. 

“Alright, what’s your deal, dude?” you ask. “Are you like hydrophobic or something? Because if that’s the case then you can just tell me, I won’t make fun of you or anything. I mean I will, but only for a little while-”

“I’m not _afraid of water_ , goddammit-” 

“Then why are you being so weird about this?” 

He sighs and his face starts to pinch up in an odd expression, like he’s trying to remember something that’s just out of reach. 

“I just…” 

“Yeah?” you press. 

“I have a bad feeling about this,” he says finally. 

You raise an eyebrow. “What like, a sixth sense or something? Heightened god perception?” 

“I don’t know!” He seems frustrated, fiddling with his hair and baring his teeth at you. “It just… _feels_ wrong, like we shouldn’t be here-”

“You probably just have indigestion or something from all the shit you ate earlier,” you say, recalling the enthusiasm with which he’d consumed half a jar of almonds earlier in the day. “Look, if we go now it’ll be over and done with before you know it, and we can make camp as soon as we’re across, okay?” 

“Dave-”

“Okay, cool.” 

You start walking towards the bridge, ignoring Karkat’s irritated cry behind you. Normally, you’d listen if he had concerns about which specific path you were taking to get home, but now you’re so close to making it that you’re not going to let anything get in your way, god senses be damned. His worries about nighttime and whether or not you’re going to ludicrously drop yourself into the river on accident are almost completely baseless, and you don’t see any point in dwelling on them. You’ve crossed rivers before, you think you’ll be fine. 

“Keep up,” you call behind you where Karkat is still standing by the bank. “You don’t wanna be left behind when the scary nighttime darkness gets here!” 

He groans but comes up to walk beside you anyways, not bothering to comment on your jab. You walk in silence for a bit, and within a few minutes you’re approaching the intimidating dimensions of the wooden bridge. It’s more dilapidated up close, and you start to feel nervousness pinching around inside your stomach as Karkat’s concerns come to the forefront of your mind, though you tamp them down out of pure stubbornness more than anything. You press your foot against the first few planks of wood to test their strength, and when you’re sure they’ll be able to hold your weight you step up onto the bridge, getting the full scope of the structure for the first time. It stretches far into the distance, made with a hill just steep enough that you can’t see the end, and when your eyes search for the other side of the riverbank, you come up empty. 

“Come on, dude,” you say to Karkat, who’s lingering behind you. “It’ll hold, see?” You bounce up on your toes a bit to make your point, and Karkat’s jaw jumps oddly before he makes his way up onto the bridge, with as much hesitancy as someone trying to step over an angry rattlesnake. 

The first few minutes you’re on the bridge are smooth sailing; the water is calm below you, there’s a pleasant breeze wafting over your skin, and the wooden beams seem to be in fairly good condition save for a loud creak every few dozen steps or so. Karkat drags ass for a bit but then picks up the pace, and soon you’re both traversing the bridge with little effort. 

Then the condition of the structure dramatically worsens about half a mile into your crossing. Planks of wood seem to be rotting off intermittently, and the wrong step will cause bits of the platform to crumble beneath your feet. The center of the bridge is worse, likely from years of people crossing it, so you stick closer to the edge where the boards seem to be in slightly better shape. There’s a short railing along the sides, too low to prevent someone from fully falling off, but still tall enough to act as support while you and Karkat avoid holes in the floor and try not to trip on any splintering wood. It works well enough to keep you upright when you misstep, and gets you across another mile or so. 

And then the railing disappears. You’re maybe two-thirds of the way through, and have just made it over the bridge’s steep hill to see the other side of the riverbank greeting you some ways off. The banister has completely rotted away from the last section of the bridge, which is starting to look less and less traversable the more you walk. Without the security of the rail, you and Karkat are left to dance around decaying timber and rusted metal girders with nothing to stop you from falling into the water, and it’s not long before one of you nearly does. 

You’re able to grab Karkat’s hand before his foot fully sinks into a half-rotten board, pulling him towards you the second you hear the structure start to give way underneath his weight. He clings onto your shirt with wide eyes, looking towards the massive hole that just opened up beneath him and the precarious perch you’ve both found yourselves in. 

“Dave-” he tries, but you shake your head. 

“We’re almost there,” you say, eyes on the horizon. “We just gotta parkour around this shit a little longer and we’ll be on the other side-”

“Dave,” he says again, with a tone like he’s far beyond fucking around. “I’ll survive the fall, if something happens. It’ll be annoying and inconvenient, and I’ll never forgive you for making me wade through disgusting human river water, but it won’t kill me. _You,_ on the other hand-”

“ _I know_ , okay?” you say. Karkat is still pressed against you, hands clenched around the fabric of your shirt, and you can see the concern in his eyes flicker with every word you say. “I’m hyper-aware of my mortality these days, dude, I know what’ll happen if I fall in, but if we turn back now we’ll lose the whole day and I don’t think I can handle that, alright? We’re _so close_ to finding her, so fucking close, and I’m not letting some shitty bridge get in the way of me seeing my sister. I’m just not.”

Karkat frowns, and refuses to meet your gaze despite your close proximity. He looks over your shoulder to where the rest of the bridge stretches out into the distance, and when his eyes come back to yours it’s with a relenting sigh. 

“Fine,” he says, voice measured. “But let me go first.” 

He shifts then, putting himself in front of you while trying to disturb as little of the structure as possible. A gray hand reaches out behind him, asking you to hold it, and you almost forget about the bridge as you close your fingers around his. 

You move quietly. Karkat tests each placement of his foot before fully setting his weight down, lending to an agonizingly slow plod over the rest of the bridge, and each creak or moan of the wood makes your heart jump out of your chest. The riverbank in the distance stops looking like it’s getting any closer, and you take to staring down at the wood below your feet instead. You can see your shadows etched into the water underneath you, shimmering and dancing with the light movement of the river through the gaps in the planks, and it becomes a welcome distraction from thoughts of your immediate peril. Your shadow shifts in the evening sun, skewing in one direction until your body becomes preposterously oblong and distorted. Then it shifts again after a few minutes, warping and compressing into a more human shape as the shadow rises to meet with its source - 

As the water gets closer to the bridge - 

As the current starts to lap at your heels - 

You look up. The sun hurts your eyes. 

“Karkat,” you say. Your hand starts to feel clammy in his. “Maybe this is just the prairie madness talking, but does it seem like the water is rising to you?” 

“Yes,” he says instantly, apparently having noticed some time before you. “I didn’t wanna freak you out-”

“Well, I’m fucking freaked out, man, so much for that.” You look out over the river and make note of how angry the current has become, how waves are swelling up against the sides of the bridge and spraying you with cool water. “This doesn’t make any sense, it’s not even raining, we’re ten days out from when the floods are supposed to start-” 

“Something doesn’t want us here,” Karkat supplies simply. “It’s what I was trying to tell you earlier.” 

“You can cash in that ‘I told you so’ now, if you want.” The sun is starting to set; you can see stars twinkling into existence at the very top of the sky. 

“Think I’ll save it,” he says, voice rising so you can hear him over the sound of crashing water. “Wanna make sure you’re alive so I’ll have time to rub it in.” 

You don’t have a response, fear clogging up your throat and making it difficult to speak. You can tell that Karkat is trying to move quicker, but the condition of the bridge isn’t making it easy and any potential misstep could result in your immediate injury. His hand is a vice grip on yours, even as you feel yourself start to shake, and after a few more minutes of strained movement the end of the bridge finally comes into few. Your shoes are wet, the ankles of your pants sticking uncomfortably to your skin, but you let out a sigh of relief when you can see the riverbank waiting for you on the other side. 

“We’re almost there,” Karkat tries to say, but he’s cut off by an enormous roar from somewhere in the distance. 

You both look at each other with wide eyes. Karkat’s gaze shifts to focus on something behind you, skin paling, and your breath starts to hitch in your chest. 

“Thunder?” you guess. It sounds naive even to you. 

There’s a beat of silence and then Karkat is pulling you along with much more urgency, dexterously maneuvering through the last section of the platform with little concern for loose boards or potential dangers. 

“Not thunder!” he calls to you. You can hardly hear him over the sound of the waves, and you think the wind has started to pick up along with it. Another roar pierces through the air and rattles the insides of your ears. “ _Definitely_ not thunder!” 

It’s difficult to keep up, but you manage; fear has made you impossibly agile as far as avoiding holes in the bridge, and you and Karkat are able to make significant headway before he looks behind him and stops suddenly. You haven’t had a chance to turn around and figure out what exactly is pursuing you so ardently that Karkat seems to be genuinely afraid, and when you finally catch a glimpse of the thing in question you feel your stomach drop out from under you. 

An impossibly huge beast is swimming upstream, headed directly towards you. With the head of a goat and the fins of a sea creature, its enormous size makes the bicyclops you encountered several weeks ago seem like an infant. Your brain has trouble conceptualizing how big it actually is, so large it makes your head spin, and your heart pounds out of control as panic buzzes around inside you. The creature is rapidly hurtling towards you, the motion of its huge body responsible for the odd behavior of the water, and for some reason it seems incredibly angry. You only vaguely recognize what kind of animal it is from your brief schooling, but from your memory you’re able to pull a single thought. 

“That thing is supposed to stay in the ocean,” you shout. “It’s not supposed to be here, why the fuck is it here-” 

“I don’t know!” Karkat calls back to you. He sounds frazzled, desolate. “I don’t know.” 

Waves crash up against the bridge, dampening your clothes and chilling you to the bone, and the wind howling all around you makes you feel dizzy, off-balanced. The creature continues its pursuit of you, its body pushing away gallons of water as if they were little more than puddles, the resulting displacement rattling the structure beneath you. You don’t think the bridge will hold much longer - it was never meant to withstand such intense movement, and it’s already starting to decay even further. A section of boards and planks from the direction you came from break and fall away into nothing, splashing into the river and disappearing within a moment. 

You watch Karkat calculate your odds and evaluate the situation at the same time you do. Red eyes flick between the last segment of the bridge you need to get through, to the monstrous animal swiftly approaching you, to the frigid, angry water below, until they reach your own eyes. You think you come to the same conclusion, even if you don’t want to believe it. You desperately try to come up with a solution, to find some way to get you both out of the situation fully in tact - maybe if you’re fast enough, maybe if you try to swim, maybe if you fight it -

“We won’t be able to outrun it!” Karkat calls to you. The wind carries his voice in an odd way, and the sound echoes all around you. “I can hold it off long enough for you to cross-” 

“Karkat-” 

“I’ll be fine,” he insists, but you’re suddenly not sure you believe him. “Just get across, I’ll meet you on the other side once it’s safe.” 

“I don’t want to separate,” you argue, and you know how ridiculous it sounds. Karkat is immortal, any wounds he’d sustain would be healed almost instantaneously, so why does it feel like you’ll never see him again if you let go of his hand?

“Don’t be fucking dumb.” A flash of light draws your eyes to the sickle appearing in his free hand, black and otherworldly, and incredibly small compared to the beast coming your way. “That thing could snap your fleshy human body like a fucking twig, don’t act like you’d stand a chance against it.” 

You’re running out of time to talk about it; the creature is so close now that you can smell the briney scent of seawater coming off of its skin. You don’t know what’s rooting you to your spot, why your fingers have closed so tightly over Karkat’s, why you haven’t pulled out your sword yet. It takes another few seconds of you stuttering out poor excuses for you to finally realize what it is, and the thought nearly makes you cry out in frustration. 

It’s fear. Not fear of violence, or pain, or having to fight for your life. Not fear for Karkat’s safety, or your own. Not even the fear of losing your sister again. It’s something entirely different, something you’ve had the privilege of avoiding for the last few months that you’ve been on the road with Karkat, something that only started to manifest in you in the days after Rose died. 

You don’t want to be alone again. You spent so many years on your own, when you were a kid forced under lock and key by your brother, when your only other relative died and left you to live by yourself. And you were used to it, then. You’d trekked across the entire continent on your own, barely even noticed how much time you’d spent so completely isolated, but once you met Karkat… 

You hadn’t had companionship in so long, hadn’t felt a connection to another person since you met your sister at age thirteen. You didn’t realize how much you’d craved it, how much you still need it, until you had it again in the form of Karkat traipsing through the countryside with you. The thought of losing him, even briefly, of being separated from him and forcing yourself through another day, or hour, or minute of being alone feels like it might suffocate you. Maybe that’s irrational - maybe you’re being unreasonable refusing to leave his side, maybe your feelings for him are clouding your judgement - but you can hardly find it in yourself to care. 

You never get the chance to argue your point. Karkat squeezes your hand while you’re stumbling through your own thoughts, and then lets go of it with an air of finality that you only notice after the fact. He gives you a shove in the direction of the riverbank as you come back to the present, stuttering out concerns that never reach his ears, and by the time you regain your footing Karkat is already poised to face the creature with his sickles in hand. 

“Dave, _go!_ ” he shouts back at you, voice reaching a fever pitch. 

You try to move, to finally follow his instructions after considering them for far too long, but you’re not fast enough. The monstrous animal coming towards you has reached the bridge, and a massive, scaly tail breaches the water only to come whipping down onto the wooden beams with the force of a mountain falling on top of you. Splinters fly up all around, and your feet come out from under you as the creature tears the bridge in two, sending water and debris into the air. You can briefly see Karkat lose his footing nearby, only to have your vision quickly obscured by the wreckage as fragments of wood and metal careen towards you. River water rapidly comes up to meet you as the bridge crumbles away beneath your feet, and soon you’re plunging into the freezing waves. 

The current pulls you under almost immediately, and you become so disoriented that you can no longer find the surface. Your bag and your sword, waterlogged and suddenly much heavier, start to pull you deeper into the river as the frigid water seeps into your bones. You try to swim towards what you think is the shore, but the movements of the creature continue to disturb the water and you find yourself being violently pushed and pulled along with the waves. Panic swells in your chest, makes you cough and splutter as you run out of oxygen in your lungs. Rushing water fills your ears, blocks out any other sounds, and the freezing temperatures make you quickly lose feeling in your extremities. You try to hold on for as long as you can, try to breach the surface for even a moment to catch your breath, but your vision quickly starts to curl into blackness, your lungs burning, filling with water. You’re only able to struggle for so much longer before your energy is completely sapped, and you feel your body, heavy with fear and exhaustion, sink into the dark. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the cliffhanger lmao i originally had this chapter combined with part of the next one but then it got way too long and it was already longer than all the other chapters so........ suffer i guess 
> 
> also hey did yall see that hs2 update??? canon davekat kiss??? how we feelin fellow gays?? I for one dont give a solitary fuck about the rest of hs2 but im absolutely delighted to see My Boys be happy and in love. big fan, personally. 
> 
> anyways thank u all for reading! it always makes me happy to read your thoughts on stuff so please feel free to share ur theories and everything!
> 
> see u next week maybe probably <3


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> your reactions to last chapter made me laugh, hope this makes up for the brief emotional distress <3

Your old house looks exactly as you remember it, back before you’d let it decline into dust and disarray. The living room is littered with your and Rose’s belongings, books and half-completed leatherwork and partially melted candles strewn about that mark the space as uniquely yours. It smells like jasmine, a scent that always followed Rose around, and the setting sun in the western window shrouds the room in golden light. A memory so vivid it makes your heart ache. 

“Dave, did you take my shirt again?” comes a voice from the hallway, towards Rose’s room. “I said you could borrow it for ‘special occasions,’ but as far as I’m concerned strutting around the plaza like an exotic bird looking for a mate doesn't really count. It’s embarrassing for you, really, you should just talk to the boy at the bread stand instead of making such a salacious fool of yourself.” 

You don’t move, don’t bother to make yourself known as Rose approaches the living room. Your heart pounds in your chest but it’s dulled somehow, as if you were feeling it through someone else’s body. 

“Your silence is extremely telling,” she continues. “I don’t mind if you borrow my clothes, you know, I just wish you’d-” 

Her voice tapers off as she rounds the corner and sees you standing, dumbfounded, in the middle of your living room. Confusion is only present on her face for a split second, so quick you wouldn’t have noticed if you weren’t so well-practiced in finding it, and she looks you over with vague, almost bored curiosity. You study her just the same, recognizing that she’s only just twenty-one and still baby-faced around her cheeks, barely an adult but forced to behave like one. Despite her youth, her skin looks distinctly sallow, and deep gray marks sit like stains at the bottoms of her eyelids, making her appear sickly and frail. You frown. 

You remember this Rose. You remember watching in real time as she deteriorated in front of you, as whatever illicit activities or occult magic she got involved in started to wear on her. You remember being completely helpless, begging her to let you help only to have her turn you away and claim to be fine. It was difficult to watch, and impossible not to blame yourself when you saw it eventually consume her. 

You don’t know what kind of hell you’re about to land yourself in, but it seems like the version of Rose that your brain decided to cook up for you in the last seconds of your life is the one where she’s only months away from dying. 

“It’s been a while,” she declares into your silence. “What brings you to this point in my life? Is there another secret sibling I should know about?” 

You grit your teeth. You’re not sure if you can speak, don’t know what you’d even say. Part of you wants to warn her about her impending death, but another part of you recognizes the futility of the idea. You’re just dreaming, or dying, your synapses firing at random while your brain shuts down, and nothing you can say will stop Rose from being dead outside of the strange reality you’ve crafted for yourself. You swallow. 

“I think I’m dying?” you try instead. Your voice is thick and dry, and it hurts your throat to speak. “Drowning, I guess. And my brain’s trying to make me go into the light or whatever so it can stop freaking out, but it’s not really fair to make me see you, I don’t think. Like that’s kinda fucked up, for your brain to give you hallucinations of your loved ones before you kick the bucket, all ‘hey, here’s all the people you care about, you’re never gonna see them again.’ What kind of backwards ass evolutionary defect-”

“How old are you now?” she interrupts suddenly. Her eyes trace the lines of your face. “Twenty-five?” 

“Twenty-six,” you correct. “A little young, I guess, but… I never really expected to make it this far anyways.” 

She nods at this, and you see her eyes flick about as she silently considers something, lips pursed in concentration. When she looks back up at you her gaze is watery, her expression sullen. 

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “I don’t think there’s anything I can do for you.” 

“That’s alright.” You give her a sad smile. “Guess that makes us even.” 

Her eyebrows furrow at this, but she doesn’t press you for any more information. Your heart continues to hammer out of control in your chest to the point where it hurts, and you can feel your limbs buzz with something like exhaustion, or pain. The edges of Rose’s face start to blur into an intangible mess as your eyes fill with tears and your consciousness starts to pull away. 

“Hey, can you do me a favor?” you say, voice echoing in your ears. 

“Of course.” 

“Can I give you a hug?” you ask. “Before I go?” 

Rose’s posture shifts, her mouth crooking into a troubled frown. “Dave-” 

“Because I feel like we never did that enough, you know?” Tears spill over your eyelids and drip down your cheeks in pairs of two. You can’t feel your feet anymore, your hands have gone numb. “We were always trying to be so fucking coy about everything, pretending like we only ever tolerated each other even though we were the only people we had. It felt like I won some kind of sick game whenever I saw you show genuine emotion about something, and you would always rag on me if I got blubbery and teary-eyed over anything. And that was fun an’ all, that’s just how we were and I wouldn’t change it for the world, but it also… kinda sucked ass? And I don’t blame us for that, you know, that’s just how we were taught to exist, but it woulda been nice to maybe hug it out every once in a while-” 

You don’t realize how cold you are until Rose is in your arms. She wraps herself around you with the confidence of someone who’s done it a thousand times, and the heat of her body seems to thaw you from the inside out. It’s impossibly easy to return the embrace, so much so that it makes you wonder why you never did it more, and the calming scent of jasmine and lavender fills your senses. Rose’s frame is smaller than yours, slightly shorter but just as strong, slotted perfectly against you like you were made to hold each other. You cry into her shoulder, and she grips at the fabric of your shirt, and you feel yourself start to fade away. 

You don’t want to die, you realize. Maybe you did at some point, when things with your brother came to a head, when Rose had only just died, when you were traversing the length of the country with nothing but ill thoughts to keep you company. But now, the idea terrifies you. You can’t die now, not when you’re so close to actually seeing Rose again, not when you know Karkat is waiting for you on the other side. Maybe you could find her in Prospit, retrace your steps to Karkat’s domain and see him again, but there’s billions of people down there, you wouldn’t even know where to start-

But that’s not the point, is it? Letting yourself die and finding Rose in the afterlife wouldn’t absolve you of any of your guilt, wouldn’t make your years long journey any more worthwhile. All it would do is potentially put you face to face with Rose, force you to confront your culpability in her death and all of the events following it. That’s not what you went to Alternia for, that’s not what you’ve spent months trekking through the country for, but you have a feeling it’s going to be the culmination of all your efforts. 

You try to hold on longer, to force yourself to stay alive for just a second more, but you can feel your body slowly giving up as you succumb to exhaustion. Rose’s hand comes up your back to soothe you as you start to shake, gentle and calm, and when you try to speak it burns the inside of your chest, rips up your throat like you swallowed glass. It doesn’t stop you from trying, from opening your mouth and forcing air through your lungs to get a word out, desperately trying to say one more thing to her - I’m sorry, thank you, I love you - before the heat starts to dissolve around you and Rose’s touch evaporates away and you finally - 

\- gasp for breath. 

Everything hurts. Your hands and feet feel like they’ve been plunged into boiling water and your chest is wracked with burning coughs as you try to catch your breath. The room spins when you try to open your eyes, but you’re able to hold on to a vague idea of where you are. It’s cold, and you realize that you’re lying on your back on a hard surface, the space around you appearing to be made of wood. There’s barely any light, or maybe your vision is just fading, and all around you is the echoing chirp of something you can’t recognize. It hurts your ears, but you strain them to try and decipher where the noise is coming from, why it’s so _loud_. 

“Goddammit!” comes to you clearly, the sound suddenly rushing into your ears as if breaching the surface of water. “If you had just listened to me - you _never_ listen to me -” 

You try opening your eyes again and have to blink several times to get your vision to focus. An old wooden ceiling greets you, dotted with holes that reveal a dark, cloudy sky outside, and when you force your gaze further down you find Karkat, a loud, black smudge across the room. He’s running circles around you, cursing to no one in particular and rummaging through your belongings, littering them over the stone floor. You try to say his name, get his attention, but your words come out as a garbled, wet cough. He turns to you anyways, hair flinging water droplets into the air, and he approaches you with outstretched arms. 

You think maybe he’s going to hug you, but instead he forces you onto your side and gives you a firm slap on the back before resuming his rifling through your things. You cough again as a result, spitting water and bile onto the floor beneath you, though it becomes only slightly easier to breathe. You realize with your face pressed to the gound that Karkat seems to have set you down on top of the tarp you brought in a last ditch effort to make you semi-comfortable on the hard floor. His name makes it all the way to your tongue before it chokes you again, and you’re left sputtering on the floor while he continues his anxious movements all around you. 

“I know how you humans are,” he’s saying into the space, vaguely in your direction. “You get a little too cold and wet for a little too long and you just start to die, you’d think you all would have thicker skin by now but _no_ -” 

“Wh-” you manage to get out. You cough again and spit out a mouthful of river water. “Kar-”

“And you decided it would be a great idea to take a fucking swim,” he continues, violently pulling things out of your backpack. “Now all of our shit is wet and if I don’t get you into something dry your organs will start shutting down - I cannot _believe_ humans have survived this long!” 

“I-”

“ _Shit!_ ” he exclaims, throwing your stuff down in frustration. “Fuck, none of this is gonna work, I’ll just have to-” 

Karkat sinks to his knees next to you and takes one of your ankles in his hand, uncharacteristically gentle. He sets your foot in his lap and gets to work at untying the laces of your boots, though you can see that his hands are shaking, making it difficult. You don’t bother trying to speak this time, and instead watch with muddled curiosity as Karkat’s expression shifts to horror once your shoe and sock are off. You can only assume that your toes are an extraordinary color based on the amount of frigid water that pours out of your boots, and Karkat lets out a frazzled “Okay!” before getting to work on your other shoe. 

“Okay, fine, great!” he says. “No, this is perfect, you’ll probably just lose both your feet if you’re lucky! You know, you could’ve kept all of your various extremities if you hadn’t been such a stubborn jackass insisting that we cross what turned out to be the most dangerous and poorly constructed bridge on the fucking planet. I hope it was worth it! We really made a lot of progress today, huh, really didn’t have any major setbacks at all! What a great idea, _Dave!_ ” 

You cough and stutter and shiver, and Karkat’s hand is searingly warm around your ankle. You look down at him with half-focused eyes and see for the first time the state of his clothes, his hair. He’s soaking wet, hair dripping water into his face in droplets that quickly slide away, and his sweater is stained with a deep purple substance. He looks intact, otherwise, if extremely agitated. You think there might be tears in his eyes, but you can’t be sure. 

“‘M fine,” you finally manage to force out and Karkat whips his head up to you with wide eyes. 

“Oh, great, so you also have brain damage!” he snaps. “Right, yeah, you seem perfectly fine and definitely not like you were just unconscious for twenty minutes. You’re at your prime, I’d say, probably could’ve stayed in the water even longer if you’d wanted to!” 

You let out a weak cough and Karkat finishes with your second boot, tossing it aside in disgust. He grabs you by the wrist and pulls you up into a sitting position suddenly, making your head swim from the sharp movement, and his hands come to the hem of your shirt. You groan in confusion but let him remove the soaked article from your body anyways, remaining slumped over while he makes one more attempt to find something dry for you to wear. You shiver and sniffle and watch him get more and more panicked as he continues to pull soaking wet clothes out of your bags. 

“Fuck!” he eventually yells, kicking away your wet backpack. “Fuck, I’ll just, I’ve gotta-” 

Karkat sticks his hands in his hair for a moment, purely out of frustration and fear, before pulling his own sweater off in one quick motion. Your muddled brain marvels at his tattoos, how they curl up his arms and connect at the back of his neck in a fractal pattern, and at the strange planes of his torso. He doesn’t have any nipples, you notice, or a bellybutton, and instead bares a body made of smooth, taut muscle. You stare blankly at him as he approaches you with brisk steps and falls to his knees in front of you, pulling you against him in an embrace before you have time to think about it. 

Karkat’s skin is so hot against yours it nearly burns. You feel yourself jolt at the shock, and your body tries to pull away out of instinct but you manage to resist the urge. You press your face into his shoulder and take a deep, shuttering breath as feeling slowly comes back into your limbs. Your hands, trapped warm between your chests, start to thaw until you have movement of your fingers again. The pain in your feet ebbs away, your vision starts to clear, all of your senses come back to you at once, and with the pain and confusion easing out you’re left with nothing to focus on but Karkat. 

His skin is clean and smooth, its warmth otherworldly, and in your close proximity you’re surprised to find that you can feel his heartbeat through his chest. It’s abnormally slow, so slow that you almost miss it, but the eventual thump of his heart is unmistakable once you hear it a few times. The seconds between each beat sometimes stretch into full minutes, and the racing of your own heart seems all too fast in comparison. 

You take a deep breath after a few moments of settling into Karkat’s arms. It comes so easily, drawing up your chest, past your throat, and through your nose in a stream of air so steady you feel like every drop of water has been taken out of your lungs, like they were never there at all. You feel calm and in tact, cloaked in the warmth of Karkat’s body, and the events of the last few hours seem to fade away into nothing. You can’t find a spot on your body that aches or a piece of your skin that burns, you are wholly rejuvenated, freshly healed, and the only exception is the odd feeling left swirling around in your stomach. 

Karkat pulls away from you and takes your face in his hands. You feel your breath stutter in anticipation of something, and then leave your chest all at once when he gives you an unexpectedly firm shake. 

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” he demands to know. His voice is thick with tears, and you can see red liquid beading around his eyelashes. “Do you have any idea how completely impossible it would’ve been for me to convince every major god this side of the universe that you were worth bringing back if you had died? Do you know what kind of bureaucratic, paperwork filing nightmare that would’ve been for me?”

“Sorry,” you mutter. “I didn’t-” 

“And maybe it would’ve worked out for you just fine!” he continues. “Maybe you would’ve gone to Prospit and found your sister and lived out the rest of eternity all hunky fucking dory in the afterlife but that’s - that’s not - if you wanted to do that you would’ve just offed yourself already-” 

“I don’t,” you say firmly. Dying is not the goal, not the point. “Karkat, listen-” 

“And what the fuck would I have done without you?” he asks suddenly, giving you another small, frustrated jostle. Your lips part in surprise at his intensity but you don’t have enough time to formulate a response. “I can’t exactly waltz over to Prospit any time I damn well please and if I couldn’t bring you back then what would I have left to do? Deal with that weighing on my conscience for the next thousand years? Beat myself up over the fact that I couldn’t do anything, let the death of a fucking human bother me for the rest of time?” 

“Karkat,” you say again, this time grabbing onto his wrists to get his attention. The tattoos curling around his forearms are noticeably warmer than the rest of him, and he looks at you with wide, deep red eyes. “I’m _fine_ , okay, got all my fingers and toes, probably lost a couple brain cells from being unconscious for so long but it’s cool-” 

“It’s not _cool_ , you almost fucking died! I saw you, I - I _felt_ you-” 

“I’m _fine_ ,” you insist, and you guide one of Karkat’s hands to your chest, where your heart is beating out of control. “Does that feel like the heartbeat of someone on death’s door? Does that feel like anything other than the most virile, robust motherfucker on the planet? I dunno if you’ve got magical god skin or if the shock of almost dying is finally wearing off, but this is the healthiest I’ve ever felt dude, I could run a marathon, I could fight that fucking sea monster with my bare hands, I could-” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Karkat interrupts, but there’s no bite in it. His fingers splay out over your chest, reaching up towards your collarbone, and the thumb of his other hand grazes the top of your cheek. “You weren’t breathing when I pulled you out, I thought you were dead-” 

“But I’m not.” You cover Karkat’s hand with your own, feel your heartbeat under your fingertips. “You got me in time, okay, I know I goof around about shit all the damn time but I promise I’m alright, seriously. And I’ll go ahead and give you that ‘I told you so’ now because I fucking deserve it, I’m never making another decision about our route again, I don’t even wanna _look_ at the map-” 

Your next words fall away into Karkat’s lips as he rushes forward to kiss you, desperate and heady and blistering. You feel it crackle down your spine and into your toes like electricity running under your skin, setting your nerves ablaze and your chest on fire, and the sigh that escapes from you is one of relief, contentment. Karkat is exceptionally gentle with you, arms coming around the small of your back to hold you, thumbs pressing into your hips to keep you steady. He peppers you with kisses that start out frantic and anxious until you eventually feel him crumple with relief, and once he realizes you’re not going to suddenly fade away in his arms he starts to take his time. 

You feel dizzy. The whirlwind of the last few hours is starting to catch up with you, and paired with the sensation of Karkat’s lips on yours you fear you might start to evaporate from the disorientation of it all. You feel the need to ground yourself, and find your hands tracing over Karkat’s body like it’s your last anchor to reality. You run your fingers up his stomach and to his chest, splay your palm over his heart to feel its slow, steady pulse. You move up his neck, brush your fingertips over the lines of his jaw and chin. His shoulders are taut and strong, and you’re able to outline his tattoos all the way down to his wrists, the dark ink like a heat map over his skin. 

You pull away, catch your breath. Karkat watches over you with soft eyes and you can see the remnants of a tear on his face, a light pink stain barely noticeable over the heavy blush coating his cheeks. He glances away from you, unsure, and when he shifts his weight you notice for the first time that his fingertips have hesitantly dipped below the waistline of your pants, warm and curious. 

“Is this okay?” he starts to ask, but the question is barely out of his mouth before you’ve found his lips again. 

Karkat startles for a moment, and then pulls you towards him with a firm hand on your backside, the heat of your bodies flush together making you gasp. He moves to kiss at your jawline, your neck, your shoulders, presses you down onto your back and runs his hands over every inch of you. You tug at the cool metal piercing in his lip, let your fingers get caught in the wild strands of his hair, and with your heart pounding in your chest, the planes of Karkat’s body filling your senses, you don’t think you’ve ever felt more alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do yall forgive me now?? no??? well how bout a super secret [Bonus Smut Chapter](/works/26277658/) that i've posted separately?? check that out if youre yknow an adult and you want to read it lol 
> 
> in case anyone gives a shit i decided to post it separate for a couple reasons - i didnt want to have to change the rating of the whole fic and i also wanted to keep it open for younger folks/sex repulsed people who want to continue reading. also i fucking hate it when books/movies/whatever include unnecessary sex scenes and i didnt wanna be That Guy so.......... there u go 
> 
> but yeah this chapter was a lot of fun and im looking forward to the next few chapters where we really Get Into Shit
> 
> hope you all enjoyed!! thank u for the validation and interactions and everything, i really appreciate it <3


	13. Chapter 13

A soft wave of sunlight wakes you up in the morning, cascading over your skin and slowly warming the parts of you that had gone cold in the night. You blink your eyes open and try to get your bearings, remember where exactly you are. Once your vision properly clears and you take in your surroundings, you start to recognize the wooden beams and hard floor of the abandoned building you’d found yourself in last night, the same one where you nearly died, the same one where you and Karkat - 

Heat shoots into the tips of your ears and you smile despite yourself. You turn lazily to your side and expect to see Karkat splayed out next to you, still pretending like he doesn’t enjoy the human act of sleeping, but all you find is the empty expanse of your rain tarp. You frown and sit up, removing the damp article of clothing that had been carefully placed around your midsection to cover you as you slept. 

You find Karkat some ways off, sitting in the half-fallen doorway of the dilapidated building, perched on the front step with one of your bags under him to avoid splinters. All of your things are strewn out in the grass in front of him, slowly drying off in the morning light, and the amber hues of the sunrise dance over Karkat’s skin as if he were made of gold. 

You sit next to him, careful not to scrape any of your bare skin over the rough wood, and press your lips into his shoulder to get his attention. He gives you a soft smile and drags a knuckle across your cheek, affectionate and sweet, before gracing you with a light kiss. 

“Everything’s almost dry,” he mutters, turning to stare out into the open space beyond the door. “Figured you’d contract some sort of disease if I let you put on a bunch of wet clothes, nevermind whatever parasites you’d get from that fucking river water.” 

“I don’t mind being naked a while longer,” you say, leaning back on your hands and stretching out your legs to make your point. “Feels natural, feels organic.” 

Karkat rolls his eyes, but not before giving you an overtly appreciative onceover. He curls in on himself then, crossing his arms over his knees and resting his chin in his hand, gaze focusing on something in the horizon. You try to follow his line of sight, to find whatever seems to be catching his attention, but you can’t see anything of note. Worry starts to pull at your stomach, and you try to sound casual when you speak again. 

“You okay?” you ask. “I can cover up if my extremely attractive and godlike visage is distracting you - I know it can be a lot to handle even for someone of your divine constitution, don’t be embarrassed.” 

“While your body is an extraordinary feat of the otherwise remarkably boring cycle of human evolution, it’s not what’s on my mind right now.” A pause. “Well, not entirely.” 

“Oh?” you say, eyebrow quirked in smug interest. “Please share, tell me more about what parts of my body you’re particularly fond of. Wait, lemme guess - one of them’s my ass, right? I know it’s plush, I’ve been working on it for years, you’re more than welcome to admit that. And if not my ass then obviously my rock hard abs or my huge, superhuman, massively impressive-” 

“Mouth,” Karkat finishes. When your lips part in surprise he adds, “It’s capable of spilling out the most foul, irritating bullshit I’ve ever had the misfortune of hearing with the speed and frequency of rabbits procreating, but then you never fail to let something clever or pleasant squeeze its way through every once in a while.” 

You feel your face pale and at the same time brighten to match the heat of the sun. “Oh.” 

“I enjoy watching it form words, regardless of how annoying or potentially charming they are,” he continues. “I enjoy kissing it. I especially enjoyed last night when you-” 

“Alright,” you interrupt. You press your hands to your cheeks to try and cool yourself down. “My turn now - I love how you don’t have a bellybutton, I think that’s so sexy-” 

Karkat laughs suddenly, the tone resonating in your ears like a wind chime, a bird singing, the sound of your metalwork tools hammering a sword into shape. He looks at you with a bright smile, just a hint of vindicated satisfaction pulling at the corners of his mouth, and your chest squeezes with odd feelings you have trouble placing. 

“Didn’t realize humans were such prudes about these things,” he says, radiantly superior in his godly ability to speak so candidly about sexual experiences. “You’re normally so confidently loud about every other facet of your life-” 

“Sometimes a guy just doesn’t know how to take a compliment,” you correct him with a hand in the air. “But hey, you know, if you wanna keep throwing ‘em at me I’m sure I’ll get used to it eventually, feel free to pepper them into our conversations from now on.” 

“Oh, sure,” he says with a grin. “I can’t imagine that would make you even more of a pompous tool, to pump you so full of flattery everyday that you actually start to believe it.” 

“Nah, not me.” You stretch your arms over your head and sigh at the popping and shifting of your muscles. “I’m extremely good looking and also incredibly humble, never mind how totally sexy and modest I am. Not gonna find such a three-dimensional personality in any other human, probably.” 

Karkat laughs again, and the sound floats straight into your chest. You watch him smile for a moment before the shape dissolves into a concerned frown, eyebrows coming together just under the fringes of his hair. His eyes go distant again, focused somewhere on the horizon, and you feel yourself unconsciously shift closer to him to offer some vague sense of comfort. 

“What’s on your mind?” you ask. “Barring my insane bod and incredible physique of course.” 

“I’m worried,” he says after a long pause. “It feels like someone’s out to get us.” 

You glance at him, try to read his expression. “What makes you say that?” 

“That creature we saw in the river belongs in the ocean,” he explains. “Even with the flooding I doubt it would’ve made it this far inland on its own, which means someone probably put it there.” 

You hum, but can’t come up with any reasonable theories on your own; you’re not nearly well-versed enough in god politics to know who might have it out for you and Karkat. “Any idea who it might be? Have you got beef with someone?” 

“Not that I’m aware of,” he says, though it’s with a sneer. “The Condesce had domain over the ocean before my dad - before she took over as Death.” 

“Maybe it’s some kinda test,” you suggest. “Like this is your first big assignment and she’s tryna challenge you and everything, make sure you know what you’re doing.” 

“Maybe,” he mutters, though he doesn’t seem convinced. 

You watch him carefully for a bit, see his eyes flick around as if searching for the solution to his problem somewhere in the crumbling building you’ve found yourselves in. He doesn’t seem worried so much as he seems frustrated, and you’re left with no idea how to ease his troubles, how to calm his anxiety. 

“Hey, we made it though,” is what you eventually come up with. “That weird goat thing barely put a dent in our plans, you know, we made it across the river scott fucking free and I’m sure you’re gonna get the promotion of a lifetime once you get back to Alternia.” 

Karkat’s eyes narrow. “I wouldn’t say that watching you nearly die constitutes as ‘getting off scott free.’” 

“Yeah, but luckily I had a super hot god to save my life,” you add coyly. You take Karkat’s hand and give it a dramatic kiss, flutter your eyelashes at him. “You’re my knight in shining armor, dude, pulling me out of that river like a hero and giving me mouth to mouth, I really owe you one-” 

“It was extremely inconvenient for me, actually,” he argues, though it’s with pink cheeks. “I only saved you because it would’ve been more annoying to let you die-”

“Uh huh.” 

“- and the exertion of bringing you back from the brink of death has exhausted me, I think the very essence of my life force has been drained significantly-” 

“Sure.” 

“-letting a human live goes completely against my nature, Dave, you’ve permanently upset the delicate balance of life and death-” 

“Yeah, man.” 

“-the consequences of this will be enormous, you have no idea what kind of destruction your measly human lifespan has wrought-” 

“Maybe you should just kiss me about it?” you suggest, half-joking, though Karkat complies almost instantly. 

You can’t help sighing into his mouth as he presses kiss after kiss against you, hand firm and gentle on your knee to keep you close. The early morning sun casts a soft heat across your bare back and shoulders, while the ever-present warmth from Karkat’s body flickers against your chest like an open flame. You come half undone when he brings his other hand around to grip at your waist, thumb pressing into your hip bone like he means to mark you with his fingerprints. Karkat pulls back before you get the chance to float too far away, though he stays enticingly close to you. 

“I’m glad you’re alright,” he mutters, his joking tone from earlier no longer present. “You scared the shit out of me.” 

“Yeah.” You don’t know what to say; it’s been years since anyone bothered to care if you lived or died. “Sorry.” 

“Just don’t do it again,” he demands, but there’s no bite in it. “I’m reducing your free range privileges from now on, if you don’t hold my hand through every minor obstacle we encounter I’ll kill you myself. I’m carrying you over the next puddle we come across and you’re not allowed to bathe unsupervised anymore.” 

You laugh, breathy and lazy, and the movement draws your mouth closer to his again. “Promise?” you ask, and Karkat’s eyes make a full rotation before landing back on you. 

He gives you a soft smile but you watch it slowly tilt into a frown only a moment later, his eyes leaving yours to focus on the floor beneath you. His hand releases your hip in favor of holding your palm in his, brushing light touches over each of your knuckles, your fingertips. Something in the slope of his body isn’t quite right, like he’s trying to hide from you, shoulders hunched and chin turned downwards. 

“Don’t think I ever said thank you,” you breathe into the thin space between you, “for saving me an’ all.” 

Karkat shrugs. “I wasn’t just going to let you die,” he offers. 

“Another god might’ve,” you point out. “I think someone mentioned to me once that most of them are kind of assholes. Who was it that said that? I can’t even remember, dude, but he was real fucking loud about it-” 

A chuckle makes its way out of his chest, but the tone isn’t high enough to ring true. “Any other god probably would’ve killed you for the things that come out of your mouth alone,” he states confidently. “You’re lucky they made me come with you and not some other self-absorbed piece of shit.” 

“I am lucky,” you say, no longer kidding. You try to find Karkat’s eyes under his wild hair but he refuses to meet you halfway, instead continuing to fiddle with your hand. “You feelin’ okay?” 

His ministrations pause for a moment, and only resume after he’s let out an uncharacteristic sigh. “You know, I…” His voice is unsure, and he stops, tries again. “My dad was the God of Death. I see hundreds of people come through the Corpse Capital everyday. I’m constantly dealing with disputes from people who are pissed off about their placement, but… I’ve never actually _seen_ someone die.” 

You blink, “Oh.” You guess it makes sense, though; Karkat hasn’t been on the surface in several hundred years, and you doubt he was allowed to be present when his dad had to take people down below. 

“The way you looked when I pulled you out of the river…” He shakes his head, and his grip on your hand tightens. “It just felt wrong. It felt _bad_.”

You swallow. “Yeah?” 

“Yes,” he says, voice louder suddenly. He shakes his head again and finally looks up at you, eyes shining bright, firey red even through a veil of tears. “It just - it makes me crazy, it makes me fucking _furious_ to know that people like the Condecse and all the pretentious, despotic fucks up in Skaia watch people suffer and die every fucking day and don’t even _feel_ anything.”

“Maybe they do,” you try to offer. “Maybe they-” 

“They don’t,” Karkat interrupts, an air of finality in his voice. “They don’t give half a shit about what’s happening to people down here, because if they did then there wouldn’t be a plague taking people out by the hundreds or a flood destroying the infrastructure of an entire fucking district. Do you know how simple it would be for the Condesce to reverse the flooding? The ocean is still her domain, she could recede the water as easily as you could clean up a typical household spill, nevermind how many people she could save while she’s taking over for Death. And then there’s Dualscar, and the fucking Grand Highblood, and countless other inordinately powerful beings situated squarely at the top of the ruling hierarchy who could end the suffering of thousands of people with the same amount of effort it’d take for a human to sit around with their thumb up their ass all day, and they just _choose not to_.” 

“And when people like my dad even try, they get punished for it,” he continues in your stunned silence. “You have no idea what kind of shit he had to deal with when the higher ups found out he was helping people, god fucking forbid. I refuse to believe that this is what Calliope meant when she came down from space in her mystical fucking halo of light or whatever and told everyone to keep some kind of balance when it comes to slaughtering humans. There’s no way, there’s just no way that this is fair in any kind of major cosmic sense, and either everyone upstairs has gotten their heads so far up their own asses that they can’t even think about maintaining order anymore, or Calliope got her fucking math wrong.” 

He sighs at the end of his sentence, clearly frustrated, and you feel your heart tense at the complete resignation on his face. You couldn’t even begin to offer an explanation as for why the gods seem so hell bent on letting people die, beyond the simple fact that they can’t be bothered to give a shit about the average human. It makes the distinction between gods like Karkat’s dad and ones like the Condesce that much more obvious - with the way Karkat talks about her you’re starting to think the Condesce gets some kind of sick enjoyment out of watching people die, out of causing suffering for others. You don’t know where that divide comes from, what line has to be crossed to go from a benevolent patron to a cruel subjugator, and why the former seems to be so few and far between. 

“Maybe you could do something,” you eventually say, a thought coming to you. “I mean, you’re the son of Death, aren’t you? That’s gotta mean something.” 

The slant of Karkat’s mouth remains in a stubborn frown, and he gives you an unconvinced shrug. “There’s kind of fuck all I can do sorting files in the Corpse Capital,” he mutters. “Not exactly like I can bring an official complaint to Skaia with signatures from fifty-thousand humans that says ‘Hey please stop using your immeasurable power and copious free time to murder us in droves.’ That’s not how this shit works.” 

“What’s with the Condesce being in charge anyways?” you add. “Shouldn’t you be next in line?” 

Karkat lets out a sound halfway between a growl and grunt, clearly agitated by your question. “They said I was too ‘young and inexperienced,’” he explains with a roll of his eyes. “Which I know is complete bullshit because they let Sollux take over the doors without a second thought and he’s never put a significant amount of effort into anything in his life. He phased into existence like a cloud of noxious gas ripping through the Psiionic’s asshole with a shit-eating grin and the petulance of a fucking toddler and hasn’t bothered to change in the last six hundred years.” 

“So how come you’re not in charge, dude?” you ask. “Sounds like you got fucking jipped if you ask me.” 

Karkat is quiet for a moment, a muscle in his jaw jumping as he tries out a few words in his mouth before saying, “They didn’t want a repeat of my dad.” 

You pause, nod. “They didn’t want you helping people.” 

“Of course not,” he spits, tone redirecting back into anger. “They never wanted him to actually talk to humans, to get to know them, to figure out which ones to take and which ones to leave. Just because someone’s sick or dying or half-dead doesn’t mean it’s their time to go - shit happens but sometimes people still have years left, and my dad would let them have those years.” 

“I was on my way out when he came to take my brother,” you recall. “I thought for sure I was as good as dead but he… healed me? Or at least made sure I didn’t kick the bucket right then and there. Guess that’s not exactly in line with the god rules or whatever.” 

“Definitely not,” Karkat agrees. “Though calling it ‘healing’ might be a stretch. It’s more like… taking the death out of you.” 

“Sounds sick.” 

“It came with a lot of fucking caveats, from what I remember.” He lifts his upper lip in a sneer at another facet of godhood that’s laced with rules and conditions. “Sometimes it didn’t work, you know? Sometimes that person’s time was up and they had to go anyways or… I don’t know, it probably had some kind of fucking cooldown on it to make sure he didn’t break the rules and save too many people at once, or fully shed his responsibility of bringing people to the Corpse Capital and just start healing them en masse. Death himself being a healer, could you imagine? Skaia would fucking riot.” 

“Still pretty cool, though,” you say. 

Karkat shrugs and the shifting of his shoulders draws your attention back to his tattoos, on full display in the morning light and without the shroud of his dark clothing. You run a finger over a line of black ink and follow it down his arm as the pattern breaks and fractures into branch after branch until you meet his wrist, turning it to feel his pulse. It’s slow and steady, and when you hold your breath to match its pace you feel goosebumps erupt over your skin. Karkat looks up at you with bright, soft eyes, and an idea comes to you. 

“Do you think you inherited that?” you ask. Your voice has dropped suddenly, like you’re sharing a secret only you and Karkat will be privy to. “The… death removal, or whatever?” 

Karkat blinks like he’s never considered the idea. “I wouldn’t know,” he eventually says. “I mean, how would I? I’ve never gotten the chance to interact with humans so much that I could have-” 

He cuts himself off when he sees you gesturing to yourself with a raised eyebrow, noting your speedy and miraculous recovery from having nearly died just yesterday. You watch his cheeks darken to a pretty shade of pink, and are delighted to see the flush travel down his neck and onto his chest. His mouth opens and closes a few times as he considers your words, and his eyebrows go through a series of different movements as he tries to parse your meaning, the implications of the last few hours. 

“Maybe,” is what he eventually settles on, though his eyebrows have taken on a strong angle that indicates he only barely believes you. “But… I’m still stuck under the thumb of divine bureaucracy, it’s not like I can really save anyone from all the way in the Corpse Capital where I’m suffocating under a pile of placement disputes and revival requests.” 

You shrug. “You saved me.” 

There’s a pause in which Karkat takes this in, swallowing, nodding, and swallowing again, and his eyes slip back down to where his fingers are playing idly with one of your hands. You watch him nod to himself, more to replace spoken words than to indicate his agreement, and you don’t miss the rapid blinking of his eyes just below the fringes of his hair. His hand begins to shake around yours, and when he looks back up at you his irises are hidden behind a flood of pink tears. 

“Yeah,” he eventually says, voice small and unsteady. A few tears slip down his cheeks and you use your thumb to wipe them away, feeling yourself frown at the sight of them. 

You guess you didn’t realize how much your almost dying has affected him; you can’t remember the last time your life meant anything to anyone else, and you think you’ve spent the last few months convincing yourself that’s still the case. You can only imagine the panic and terror Karkat must’ve felt pulling you out of the river, half dead and barely breathing, all while he was desperately unaware of his potential to bring you back from the brink. You don’t want to think about how close you were to being separated from him, how close you were to losing each other, and your fingers curl around his until your knuckles turn white. 

“I’m okay,” you remind him, if only because you don’t know what else to say. Karkat just nods, and sniffles, and grasps your hand in his like he never wants to let you go. 

The morning creeps on around you as you both sit in the tumbling doorframe of the old barn, quiet and bare and far too engrossed with each other to care about the outside world. You let your free hand roam Karkat’s body, spread your fingers wide over the dark ink of his tattoos, press your knuckles into his ribcage to feel his heartbeat, grasp onto the soft skin of his thighs just to ground yourself. He flits gentle touches over your forehead, your cheeks, your jawline, across the junction of your neck and shoulder where his mouth left a mark the night before, and eventually his lips come to yours with sweet words and sweeter kisses. 

You get a bit distracted, then. Karkat lets you kiss him until the early morning light stretches out into afternoon shades of yellow and orange, and by the time you notice how long has passed you’ve already missed part of the day. Neither one of you seem particularly enthusiastic about leaving the liminal space that you’ve carved out for yourselves, but with your belongings dried out and the sun stubbornly crawling across the sky you guess you don’t have much choice. You both dress and collect your things, Karkat’s hand finds yours once you exit the building, and before you know it you find yourselves back on your path to the north. 

You fall into the same routines you’ve been following for the last several months, but they feel different already. The environment around you starts to show more and more evidence of regular habitation, and soon you’re trekking through Cerulean District suburbs and farming territory on the outskirts of large towns. The map becomes unnecessary as roads and signage start appearing to show you the way, and you’re able to spend more nights under shelter rather than on a tarp. Gathering food, setting up a fire - it all becomes redundant, inessential. The time you save just from being surrounded by civilization means you cover a lot more ground during the day, getting closer to your hometown faster than you anticipated, and somewhere along the way you start to recognize some of the scenery. 

The architecture of the Cerulean district is hard to forget, with grand buildings made of rounded tiers stamping the area’s skyline in a dramatic, opulent display. The rooves are adorned in bright colors, made of dyes you wouldn’t even dream of having in the Copper District, and through the windows you’re able to see silky, expensive clothing on display for prices that make your head spin. Everything about the area is recognizable as expensive and luxurious, from the smooth, intricately cut stones used to pave the streets, to the decorative, wasteful water features that sit between the buildings. 

But the more you walk around, the more you start to feel oddly unnerved. You’ve been here before, you remember the plaza you and Karkat have found yourselves in with almost perfect clarity, and something about it isn’t right. Your memory is tinged with the sounds of a lively city, of people bustling through the streets and playing music through open windows, of carriage wheels and horse hooves traipsing over hard stone. You remember the smell of decadent foods wafting through open storefronts, mixed with the scent of fragrant perfumes and makeup. You remember riches, and you remember life, and you remember people. You pause in the center of the street, and Karkat’s confused eyes meet your own. 

You can’t smell anything but the staleness of the air, the dust that’s kicked up beneath your feet upon your arrival. No sounds greet you save for the bubbling of a half-broken fountain and the delicate movement of a small animal hidden somewhere nearby. The colorful garments in a nearby store window are torn and disheveled, hanging limply from their hooks and flittering in the wind. You feel your heart start to pound as your eyes flick over your surroundings, desperately trying to find some sign of life. You grip Karkat’s hand, and feel the space start to close in around you. 

You and Karkat have walked into the middle of Rose’s hometown, and it’s completely abandoned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hewwo sorry for the delay in updates i got really sad for a month it happens
> 
> dunno how i feel about this chapter tbh its mostly filler and i was in a Mood when i wrote it but this is what u get for now lmao
> 
> next chapter should be markedly less shitty but i cant really guarantee that i guess, but im getting back into the flow after being blocked for a while so hopefully thats a good start!
> 
> thanks as always for being kind and validating in my general direction, i appreciate and love you all <3


	14. Chapter 14

“This isn’t right,” you say immediately. “Where the fuck is everybody?” 

Your heart stutters as you think of worst case scenarios, as the looming threat of a devastating plague just a few miles west comes to the forefront of your mind. The abandoned buildings and tattered remnants of civilization you find yourself surrounded by suddenly become much more sinister, and panic starts to well in your throat. 

“Fuck,” you say, and your voice bounces around in the empty street. “The plague - did they - ?” 

“No,” Karkat states, tone sure. His eyebrows have furrowed like he’s deep in thought, red irises darting around the depressing scenery. “They didn’t die.” 

“How do you know?” you ask, and Karkat gives you a look. 

“I’m kind of familiar with the concept of Death Itself, in case you forgot,” he reminds you. “I can tell when it’s got its hands around a place; the town in the plains fucking reeked of it, but that’s not what happened here.” 

“Well what the fuck _did_ happen, then?” you demand. “They just, what, up and left? Fucked off to some other random place in a mass exodus or something?” 

Karkat looks away from you, head tilted as if listening for signs of life. “I don’t know,” he says, and his voice has dropped low enough that it’s no longer being picked up and thrown around by the smooth stones of the buildings around you. 

You both look around, and while Karkat moves away from you to inspect some of the closer buildings, you remain in the middle of the street, unable to move. The skeleton of what you experienced as a thriving town just a few years ago pushes down on you, curls around your body like it means to draw you inside itself and encase you in a tomb of its bones. Your breaths come in short bursts as you think of what happened, what’s been lost. A prospering, lively city reduced to a ghost town in just the time it took you to traverse the country a couple times, your last connection to Rose fading away and leaving you with nothing but memories. 

She’d only shown you around once, and you remember it so clearly you could probably retrace your steps through the city even years later. It was bittersweet for her - returning to the place she had so easily abandoned in favor of pursuing a life with you - but you recall the experience with nothing but fondness. You were both still young, probably young enough that you shouldn’t have been traipsing through an extremely rich district entirely unsupervised, but you’d just been emancipated from your respective guardians and decided to treat yourselves to some reckless freedom. You ate a lot of food, and spent a lot of money, and wasted a lot of fucking time, but those few days of indulgence, of being a stupid kid with your sister, of feeling the inklings of hope for the very first time, were the best few days of your life. And now the city that’s home to some of your greatest memories is leaving you, in exactly the same way Rose left it herself - suddenly, and with very little explanation. 

“They ran out of food,” comes Karkat’s voice in your ear. He hands you a piece of paper he seems to have plucked off a store window, and you squint at the message that’s been hastily scrawled on it in lopsided script. It’s something about the store being closed due to the “food shortage,” along with an estimated date of reopen that’s already long passed. 

“Holy shit,” you say, the paper crinkling in your grip. “They were starving, dude, how the fuck did that even happen? What the hell is going on?” 

“Maybe there was a blight, or something?” Karkat supplies, clearly unsure of basic human agricultural practices. “Or, with the fucked up weather-” 

“Nah, they didn’t grow shit here,” you recall. Rose gave you an extensive political and economic briefing of the district when you first arrived, and you’d listened just enough to remember some of the details. “They were too rich to bother growing things, you know, they just imported everything from poor people instead. Made silk or textiles or whatever, something that was hard to make and costs a lot money, something they could outsource with cheap labor. Typical rich people bullshit.” 

“Well, where did they import from?” Karkat asks instead. 

“Fuck if I know.” You didn’t get that far into Rose’s lecture. “Probably one of the more rural districts, I mean-” 

You cut yourself off when you realize that most of the rural districts are either currently underwater or being taken out in droves by a deadly plague. Karkat meets your eyes and you think he’s come to the same conclusion as you - the Cerulean District’s supply chain of low cost food was interrupted amidst everything afflicting the rest of the country, and eventually the well ran dry. You can’t imagine anyone in the Russet District would be willing to spare food for any cheaper with how sparse it must be during the plague, and you have no idea if any fields or farmland in the Amber District have even survived the flooding. Money can only buy so much for so long, and the people of the Cerulean District were left with no choice but to flee entirely once their way of living was so totally uprooted. 

“Where do you think they went?” Karkat asks, tone low like he’s anticipating your reaction. 

“Dunno.” You crumple up the paper and toss it aside, not bothering to find a trashcan in the broken remnants of the city. “I can’t imagine they’d have gone all the way south to the Jade District and the only other options are either underwater or half dead.” 

“Not the only options.” 

You glance at him and a cold chill runs down your spine. “You don’t think they went to the Copper District, do you?” 

“It would make sense,” he explains. “It’s far enough from the plague and the flooding that it’d probably be safe-” 

You interrupt him with a groan, pressing a finger to your temple. “Yeah, that’ll go over well,” you mumble. “A bunch of rich fucks marching into one of the poorest districts in the country and demanding they be clothed and fed. Sounds like a great idea!” 

Karkat’s brows twitch at the tone of your voice but he doesn’t seem to come up with anything helpful to share. “If we keep up this pace we can be back to your hometown in a few days,” is what he eventually settles on. “We can deal with whatever we find when we get there, let’s find somewhere to sleep first-” 

“No,” you can’t help being stubborn, “The longer we dick around here the longer people back home are being pushed around and probably murdered just so rich people can steal all their shit, I can’t just go catch a bunch of Z’s in a comfy little hostel and pretend like that’s fair in any kinda way, alright. You and I are gonna march our asses into the Copper District, get my sister back, and then figure out a way to get some of those Skaian fucks to pay attention for once-” 

“Dave.” Karkat grabs your wrist to stop you from marching determinedly out of the city, and he gives you a measured look. “Maybe your memory is fuzzy from the extensive brain damage you’ve suffered in the last few weeks, but the last time you ignored me in favor of doing something stupid and reckless you almost fucking died. Do you remember that? Because I do.” 

“Alright,” you try to concede, not in the mood to recount your near-death experience, but he keeps going. 

“Your skin was all blue and clammy and your heart didn’t beat again for a long fucking time,” he reminds you. “I can feel Death, you know? I could feel it trying to take you, felt your soul try and dislodge itself from your body and decided I was going to wrestle it back inside you with the same kind of bold determination you seem to have whenever you’re in the mood to do something that will cause you bodily harm. The last thing I need right now is the task of creating a bulleted list of reasons why Death Itself shouldn’t drag you down to the Corpse Capital the next time you do something so atrociously stupid that you almost get yourself killed.”

“This isn’t the same thing,” you argue, though you know it won’t get you anywhere. “I can’t just sit here and let my home get destroyed by yet another fucking thing trying to rip the country apart-”

“I thought humans were supposed to have some sense of self-preservation, some kind of instinct to keep them from doing things that will likely end in their immediate demise, but it doesn’t seem like the gods graced you with that specific aptitude when you slithered into existence however many years ago,” Karkat adds. “If you really want to march into the Copper District with no plan and no sleep and demand that all the rich fucks potentially terrorizing your hometown leave peacefully then you’re welcome to do that on your own, but I can almost fucking guarantee it’s just gonna end up with you sitting in Prospit with your thumb up your ass feeling like the biggest clown to come out of the human race.” 

You take a breath and try to calm the frantic anxiety pulling at the corners of your brain. You know Karkat’s right, of course you do, but the thought of sitting around and getting a good night’s sleep while your sister is still dead, while the last place you have memories with her is potentially being destroyed, makes guilt swirl around in your stomach. You try to heed Karkat’s words, try to replace the irrational need to save people at the expense of your own wellbeing with the need to change the expression on Karkat’s face into something less upset. You squeeze his hand, and some of his words come to mind. 

“Do you really think I’d end up in Prospit?” you ask, and your tone is significantly more lighthearted than you mean it to be. You can’t help the way it sounds like a joke, or the way an all too real fear cements itself in the pit of your chest. 

Karkat rolls his eyes, irises flashing bright red. “Do you want to find out?” he threatens. 

You pull him towards you just far enough to land a kiss on the side of his head, and he receives it with a blush despite wriggling away from you. 

“Let’s find somewhere to sleep,” he suggests. “I’m sure there’s an inn or something around here.” 

You hum and find your eyes drifting around the city until they focus on a hill rising to the east, looming far enough in the distance that you can’t quite see the top through a veil of fog. 

“I know where we can go.” 

* * *

Rose’s house is just as you remember it. You’d only been once, to help her retrieve some of the things she’d left behind when she originally sought you out, but the grand architecture and obviously expensive interior of the building is not one you’re prone to forget. It sits at the top of a large hill with the same domed roof and intimidating structure as most of the other buildings in the area, though the grand water features have since stopped running and are instead filled with mildew and trailing moss. The house itself is enormous, far too big to have just housed Rose and her mother, and when you and Karkat enter through the large foyer you feel incredibly small. 

“Holy shit,” Karkat marvels. His voice echoes in the open interior, threading itself through the many hallways surrounding you. “I know you said Rose was rich, but I didn’t think you meant _this rich_.” 

“Yeah,” you say, less interested. The inside of the mansion feels more like a coffin than a place where people are supposed to live, and the cold, angular design of the house isn’t impressive so much as it’s disconcerting. “She left all this to come stay with me after her mom died.” 

Karkat hums and follows you up the enormous staircase to the second level, where you know Rose’s bedroom was. It takes you a few tries to find the exact room since the hallway is littered with doors and archways into different areas, each one grander and more luxurious than the last. You eventually come across two large doors at the end of the hall, and push them open with only a little resistance to find the last remnants of Rose’s old room. 

It still looks like her, but not quite. There are half-finished knitting projects and low burnt candles and leather bound books scattered across the floor, but they’ve collected dust after almost ten years of abandonment. The mattress in the center of the room is large and soft-looking, though the sheets have long been stripped off to leave the bed barren and unused. A wardrobe to the right is empty, its doors thrown open hastily and left to swing idly on their hooks. The chair by a small writing desk has been pushed away and rotated, like the owner got up suddenly and never came back. Everywhere you look you see bits of Rose, her impression stamped into each individual piece of the room, and it only makes it more painfully obvious that she’s no longer here. 

“We’re not gonna sleep in here,” you tell Karkat as he cautiously enters the room with you. “I just wanted to… I dunno-” 

“No, this is good,” he says, picking up a nearby book and flipping through it curiously. “She touched everything in here, I could use some of this stuff to strengthen my connection to her once we get to the Copper District.” 

“Right, yeah,” you agree quietly. “The soul ritual, or whatever.” 

Karkat just nods absently as he picks through Rose’s stuff, and you seat yourself on the bed to stop you from rifling through too many things. You’ve spent enough time touching Rose’s stuff in the wake of her death, desperate to feel close to her again after the two of you spent so many months drifting away from each other. You don’t think you’ll gain any kind of catharsis from rummaging through the things she kept in her room as a sixteen year old, and try to calm your racing mind instead. 

Ten days. You’ll be able to make it back home in ten days, where you’ll presumably assist Karkat in whatever he needs to summon Rose’s soul, and the attention of all the major gods, in an attempt to bring her back to life. Karkat has run you through the basics several times, has continued to insist that there’s really not much you can do as a mortal to make it go any smoother, but you still have a hard time sitting idly by while he does all the work. 

There’s also the terrifying possibility that it might actually be successful, that you might get your sister back, that you might have to look her in the eyes and apologize for everything you’ve done. And with that comes the possibility that maybe she won’t forgive you, or that she became so comfortable in the afterlife that she’ll resent you for taking it away from her. You can only think in worst case scenarios, can only assume that things are going to go horribly wrong, but the thing you’re most afraid of is that everything goes perfectly right. 

Getting your sister back, being with Karkat, fixing your hometown, what if you had it all? What if you did everything right, and you were rewarded for it? What if you let yourself feel hopeful for a better life, for a family, for a future? Hope isn’t a feeling you’re familiar with, isn’t something you’re quick to give yourself permission for, and the thought of letting it creep into your chest just to have it ultimately soured isn’t new to you. 

You shake your head. You can’t let yourself fall into a pit of hopelessness and melancholy like you were so prone to do as a teenager, but you can’t let yourself feel comfortable either. You settle into an anxious neutrality instead, breathing a small sigh to calm your nerves before approaching Karkat. 

He’s picked up one of Rose’s old journals, and seems stuck on a particular page. The black ink staring up at him is bent and twisted into a language you couldn’t even guess at, and Karkat is focusing on it like he’s desperate to parse its meaning. His eyes dart over the page, trying to find understanding amongst the strange, angular symbols, but you have a feeling he’s not getting anywhere. 

“Rose had shit like that all over the place,” you recall with a nod towards the journal. “I snooped through her diaries a few times hoping I was gonna get some sick gossip or another thing to rag on her for but all I got was a bunch of cryptic looking letters and basically fuck all as far as slander. Found her weird fanfiction once though so I guess it wasn’t a total loss.” 

“This language is ancient,” Karkat says after a beat of silence, looking up at you with wide eyes. “It fell out of use before humanity was even created and I can’t think of a god who’s familiar with it anymore. How in Calliope’s name did you sister manage to… transcribe it? Form pages and pages of sentences with a language that pretty much doesn’t exist anymore?” 

You feel your eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Beats the hell out of me,” you say helpfully. “She did shit like this constantly dude, you have no idea how many times I caught her chanting or intoning or whatever, it was creepy as hell-”

“Was she collaborating with someone?” Karkat asks suddenly. “Another god maybe?” 

You think back to the years you spent with Rose and try and decipher some of the wild shit she used to say. “Maybe,” you eventually conclude. “I dunno, she talked about her ‘contact’ a couple times but I just kinda assumed she was talking about ancient spirits from beyond or some equally preposterous horseshit. Had to take everything she said with the world’s biggest grain of salt because I could never tell if she was being serious or just fucking with me, you know, she always said that kinda stuff to me with a shit eating twinkle in her eye like she was having the time of her life watching me struggle to comprehend whatever the hell she was rambling about that day.” 

Karkat considers this and then closes the journal with a hum, spinning you around so he can deposit it into your bag. “Well,” he says. “I guess we’ll find out.” 

It takes a while to find a room to sleep in. There are approximately sixty thousand in the house, but most of them are barren or otherwise marred by overgrowth or broken windows or shadows that are just slanted enough to be unnerving. You’re picky with your choice, anxious to avoid any potential nightmare fuel, and eventually you settle on one of the less enormous rooms on the first floor. There are the usual dressings of a guest room - bed, wardrobe, vanity - along with a full set of living room furniture and an unnecessarily large writing desk. There’s a bathroom attached as well, though you don’t bother trying the long unused plumbing. 

You and Karkat pile your things into one corner of the room despite its vastness, and the second your ass hits the plush mattress you feel exhaustion curl up around your body. You sigh and put your hands behind your head, sprawling out on the bed just to watch Karkat putz around in the room for no specific reason. 

“Are you sleeping tonight or do you have important god shit to attend to?” you ask. “What do you usually get up to when I’m asleep, like back when you were still being stubborn and refusing to try it yourself? Did you dig through my shit? Gaze longingly at my lips while I slept? Write poetry about all the things you wanted to do to me but couldn’t because Alternia would never approve?” 

“All of the above,” Karkat answers, lighting an old oil lamp with surprising ease to illuminate the quickly darkening room. “I would curse the higher gods for making me fall for such a banal creature and couldn’t help but weep dramatically on the ground every time you so much as farted in your sleep because of how embarrassingly attracted I was to you. Sometimes I’d study your face and recreate your unimpressive features in the dirt around me, then construct my own visage from the mud and force our humble effigies to kiss in a sad, lonely game of makebelieve.” 

“Man, if you had wanted to get your mack on you could’ve just asked,” you say with a grin. “I was harboring mad affection for you for like weeks before I did anything, it was buildin’ up inside my stomach like the kinda fart you get after chugging a glass of milk with your dinner, you know, it was about to rip out of me and wake up everyone on this side of the country. People were gonna sniff the air and gag and say oh shit looks like Dave’s got feelings again and then my cover would’ve been totally blown.” 

“Weeks, huh?” Karkat parses from your otherwise messy admission. He stops fiddling around and moves to join you on the bed, perching on the edge so he can take your ankle in his hand and set your foot on his lap. “I would have guessed months.” 

“Oh?” you challenge, despite your warm cheeks. Karkat just shrugs and gets to work on unlacing your boots, taking his sweet time. “No dude, you can’t just say shit like that and not follow through. I know you’re just dying to drag me through the mud because of all my human feelings or whatever - go ahead and indulge for a bit, show me what you got.” 

Karkat pauses for a moment, and then starts to speak in a tone far too affectionate for how much he degrades your character. “Did you think you were being sly when you would stare at my mouth while I talked or were you being obvious on purpose?” he starts. He slowly eases one of your boots off, and switches to the other. “What about all the times you’d only half jokingly flirt with me and then insult me afterwords to throw me off your trail? All the intricate rituals you constructed so you could touch me? I thought about calling you out on your rude and frankly inappropriate behavior but it was far more entertaining watching you stumble over your words trying to convince both of us that you weren’t into me. It was embarrassing for you, honestly, like watching a human toddler struggle with basic concepts like speaking or not shitting itself, and if you hadn’t reached the obvious conclusion on your own I would’ve had to drag it out of you just to spare myself the secondhand mortification.” 

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” you ask coyly. Karkat’s fingers are warm around your ankle, your boots and socks removed. “Since it was so unbearable to watch me pussyfoot around it all the damn time.” 

Karkat shrugs and releases your ankle in favor of removing his own shoes. His motions are careful and languid, like he means to take extra care with his laces and socks, and you spend several moments in agonizing limbo waiting for him to answer you. He doesn’t bother to speak until he’s stretched himself over the mattress beside you, splayed on his stomach like a cat in the sun with his face just close enough to yours that it’s difficult not to kiss him. 

“Despite your extremely obvious tells and insufferable _pussyfooting_ ,” he begins slowly, “part of me was still convinced I was making it all up.” 

“Nah, all that shit was real as hell.” You turn on your side so you can let your hand fall onto the small of his back, feel the warmth of his skin. “So real it was kinda annoying sometimes actually, like I was trying to focus on our task at hand and you would start distracting me being all attractive and shit, it was super inconsiderate of you I think. Nevermind the amount of times I’d have some kinda wild dream about you that made it hella difficult to look you in the eyes some mornings.” 

“I can’t believe you just fully admitted to having sex dreams about me,” Karkat states smugly, though you don’t miss the flush in his cheeks. “I’m going back to Alternia and telling all of my god friends that I tricked a human into desiring me carnally and then you’ll be the laughing stock of the Corpse Capital. Word will reach Skaia and eventually you’ll become the big-headed, foolish mascot of all the humans, made to represent their greatest faults and intellectual weaknesses, and you’ll never be able to live down the fact that you developed feelings for someone so out of your league that it’s insulting to your entire species.” 

“If I’m an idiot for falling for you then what does that make you?” you ask. “The dumbass godkid who caught feelings for the cosmic equivalent of a slug? The hot Alternian secretary who lured a hapless human into his sexy trap and cursed him to be his boytoy for the rest of eternity? The playboy paramour who waltzed around Alternia expanding his collection of broken hearts and who took advantage of a sad, lonely human?” 

“Something like that,” he agrees confidently. “I can only imagine that the tales people will write about our romance will be as dramatic and smutty as they come. Humans eat up that shit.” 

“Yeah, well, so do you,” you point out, and Karkat kisses you in reply, if just for a moment. 

A warm hand brushes onto your cheek and you close your eyes as Karkat drags his thumb over your skin. The thought of going to sleep has made your anxiety ramp up again, if only because you know that sleeping brings morning, brings tomorrow, brings you one day closer to the Copper District and closer to Rose. You try to relax but your nerves only become more palpable, jumping around just under your skin, and you have no doubt Karkat can feel them prickling around you. 

“We’ll get her back,” Karkat says, and it sounds like a promise. 

You keep your eyes closed; you don’t think you can handle seeing his expression right now. “We better,” you say. “I’m gonna feel like the world’s shittiest brother if I fail at reviving my sister for like the third time.” 

“You tried other times?” 

You lift one shoulder in a shrug. “Kinda,” you admit. “Mostly just lost money to a couple scam artists and spent a few months trying to figure out magic. Didn’t work.” 

Karkat hums, and you feel him shift closer to you. He pushes his way up against your side so he can rest his head on your chest, and the warmth of his skin starts to tug you into unconsciousness. 

“We’ll get her back,” he says again. “We’ll get her back and then we can fix your hometown, and the floods and the plague, all of it. Every last fucked up thing that’s been thrown your way, all the shit the other gods have ignored - we’ll fix it.” 

It sounds so sure coming out of his mouth that you don’t think you have any other choice but to believe him. You nod, and pull Karkat closer, and force yourself to accept the idea that things will turn out okay, until sleep eventually comes to you. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha remember how i said last time that this chapter was gonna be marginally less shitty?? guess i lied bro
> 
> NEXT chapter however we're gonna get into Marginally Less Shitty Territory because thats when the Plot kicks in and thats also where i'd put us at like the 2/3 point? 3/5? whatever
> 
> anyways i hope u liked this regardless of how i feel about it and im looking forward to the next chapter more and more! getting back into the swing of things slowly but surely 
> 
> thank u guys for reading/commenting <3 i would kill for each of u individually


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> was gonna update this like six days ago but then Stuff Kept Happening so. here we are

Every night on your journey home you dream of Rose’s dead body. You dream of how cold she felt when you’d reached out for her, you dream of the sickly pallor of her once tanned skin, you dream of the stiffness that had set into her limbs so quickly. You see her sink into the ground over and over again, pulled down below to what you can only hope is Prospit, and every time you reach a desperate hand out to her and come away with nothing but grass between your fingers. Every night it’s the same, with few variations - you see Rose dead on the ground, you crouch over her body in an attempt to revive her, and then she disappears into the earth before you have a chance to tell her you’re sorry. Like clockwork the dream comes to you, piercing into the forefront of your brain during the night and then leaving behind a lonely blackness, and by the time you make it to the Copper District you’re not sure if you can remember how Rose’s face looked when she was alive at all. 

You don’t tell Karkat about the dreams but you have a feeling he understands them anyways, if only because you always wake up sweaty and clutching onto him for dear life, tears pooling in your eyes. He doesn’t say anything about it, just gives you the time you need to pull yourself together before you continue on your way. The days pass in a blur - one, then four, then seven - until suddenly you find yourself grasping Karkat’s hand and staring out over the Copper District sitting just on the horizon. Karkat squeezes your palm, you take a deep, grounding breath, a familiar feeling wafts into your chest, and you come home for the first time in years. 

The Copper District is exactly how you remember it, and yet entirely different. The simple architecture and uneven roads and leather scented air welcome you as if you’d never left, but in between the lines of your hometown you start to find things that weren’t there before. Those from the Cerulean District who seem to have sought refuge here have integrated themselves in a way you couldn’t have imagined - where you were expecting violence and subordination, you’re met with cooperation and unity. The town square has become a sort of temporary hostel for those displaced by the food shortage, with tents and booths set up in a crowded display of dislocation. You find dark-haired Ceruleans learning from the fair-skinned people of your town, kneading bread and tanning leather and grinding stone, and in the middle of the otherwise unremarkable district you’re met with an array of vibrant colors and patterns, as everyone around you is adorned in the vivid silks of the once rich district. Everyone is so engrossed in their activities that no one even seems to notice when you walk into the street hand in hand with a god, and the flurry of movement all around you brings you immediate pause. 

“I was expecting a lot more bloodshed,” Karkat says next to you, voicing your thoughts. “I’ve heard of humans killing each other over dumber shit so this is… surprising.”

“No kidding,” you agree. “Must’ve been pretty dire fucking straits if Ceruleans are cool with living in tents and shit.”

“How long do you think all the peace and love will last?” Karkat asks. “Before it gets ugly?” 

“Dunno.” You look around, try and spot the seeds of dissent you’re sure are present somewhere. You come up empty. “Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.” 

You bring Karkat through town and towards its outer limits to get to the humble home you kept with Rose, all while the two of you marvel at how oddly peaceful everything seems to be. Karkat’s golden horns and gray skin turn a few heads, but no one approaches you to ask for his godly help. Instead _you_ seem to be the one to attract most of the attention, as every once in a while someone will recognize you and remark on how long it’s been since you were home, or express their condolences in regards to Rose, or convey surprise at the fact that you’re still alive. The man who owns the leather shop you used to work in gives you a solemn nod, a teacher you once had pulls you into a sudden hug, and one of the kids who lived across the street from you, several inches taller than when you’d last seen him, greets you with a wild, excited shout. 

“Didn’t realize I was courting a local celebrity,” Karkat comments after you’re approached several times in a row. 

“Yeah, me either,” you mutter. The attention has made you a little uncomfortable; your potential failure would reach so many more people than you thought, and it just makes you dread the outcome even more. “I mean, I did disappear for a couple years on a batshit expedition to bring my sister back from the dead, and I’m pretty sure that’s the most interesting thing to happen around here in a long time.” 

“Guess they have to be entertained somehow,” he adds. “Can’t imagine living here is particularly exciting - or at least... it wasn’t.” 

You just hum and pull Karkat along, picking up the pace as you start to feel overwhelmed. The sights and sounds of the Copper District have been amped up to levels you’re not familiar with, especially after being on the road or in abandoned towns for so long, and having so many people look in your direction with shining, hopeful eyes has suddenly made the stakes so much higher than they were before. It seems like you’re not the only one who needs Rose back.

The rumbling bustle of overlapping voices and activities starts to fade as you get closer to your home, which resides near the outskirts of the district. It’s a solitary and quiet area, which was welcomed when you and Rose were together, but much more dangerous once you were alone. There are only a few other homes in the area, though they appear to be empty while everyone floods into the town center to aid the new transplants. The home you kept with Rose sits at the treeline, resting comfortably at the very edge of the city limits, and it looks virtually unchanged from when you last saw it more than a year ago. 

You and Karkat approach your front door and then just… stand there. He doesn’t say anything as old memories flood into your head and the familiar, crawling ache of nostalgia makes itself known to you once more. The idea of having a home, a place to call your own that you shared with people you loved, was at one point a dream so distant, so irrational, that you refused to let yourself long for it. And then you met Rose, and suddenly your childish dream became a tangible reality, a house you could come to at the end of the day to rest your head, to feel safe, to be cared for. You only had it for so long before it was taken from you and you were forced to resume life as you had started it - alone, desolate, hopeless - but now your goal is within reach again; after years of brutal loneliness and grueling obstacles and exhausting grief you have finally made your way back home, and you intend to bring Rose with you. 

“You ready?” Karkat asks, hand steady in yours. 

You nod, voice too thin to speak, and let go of his hand to retrieve the house key you had tucked away so many months ago. It’s exactly where you left it - under the pot of a now long-dead plant by your front door. It’s a heavy, metal key that feels like the weight of the world in your palm, rattling in the front lock as your hand shakes with anticipation. The door unlocks with relative ease despite years of neglect, and your old home greets you in a shroud of dust and cobwebs. 

Rose is everywhere, scattered over your own home like sunlight thrown around by a broken mirror. She is in every decoration, every personal touch, down to the rug under your dining table and the color of the curtains draped over your windows. You had left so many of her things in place after her death, too guilty to think of removing them, and the result was a home that was always more Rose than you. Your shelves are still overflowing with the many books she brought home, the living room is still cluttered with her knitting projects and tools, the hanger by the door is still holding several of her hats and coats. She is everywhere, you realize, her presence so permeable that you almost forget she’s been gone for years, and you start to wonder how you managed to survive in a house that was so quintessentially Rose, while still having to live your life without her. 

“Can you show me her room?” Karkat asks. He’s wandered inside in the last few minutes, addressing you by the kitchen, and you’re not sure how long you’ve been standing in the doorway. 

“Yeah,” you rasp. You clear your throat, try again. “Yeah, it’s over here.” 

It’s even harder to exist in Rose’s room, a place you often drifted to during your years alone, but the task at hand keeps you focused. You help Karkat pick through some of her things - things she made with her own hands, things she had formed a connection with - and come away with your arms full of scarves and books and candles, her favorite mug, her favorite pen, bits of Rose that feel warm against your skin. Karkat has you deposit them in your backyard, where he studies each of them individually before arranging them in a carefully made circle on the ground, in almost the exact place that she died. He sits in the center of them, legs crossed and skin luminescent, and closes his eyes for a moment before giving you a leveled look. 

“There’s not a whole lot you can help with at this point,” he says gently. “The rest of this process is a little too divine for humans to have much of an impact.”

You swallow. “Got it.” 

“This is a good array of stuff, though,” he backtracks. “This should be enough for me to connect with her soul and summon her here. It might take a few minutes but she’ll be here, and that alone will get the attention of the higher gods.” 

You can’t breathe. “Right.” 

“They might not show up physically, you know, it takes way more grovelling and unnecessarily lavish sacrifices for them to actually grace us with their presence but… they’ll be paying attention.” You think Karkat is nervous too, if the light tremor in his voice is anything to go by. “They might be interested to hear your side of things, and if that’s the case then feel free to embellish your story a little, add some more preventable human suffering and general despair just to amp them up a bit. Gods love hearing about horrible things that have happened so they can grant one dramatic, grandiose wish and act like they solved the problem even though they’re the ones who caused it in the first place.” 

“Karkat-” 

“I know.” He looks at you, red eyes so bright they almost hurt to look at, and gives you a short nod. “Look, if this… doesn’t work out - it’s not your fault. You’ve done everything you can.” 

You just nod at him, and he gives you a kind smile before closing his eyes and focusing in on his task. 

“Also it’s probably gonna get really warm over here so you might want to back up.” 

You heed his advice and take a couple steps back to view the ritual from a safer vantage point. Karkat remains still and steady on the ground while you take one stuttering breath after the other, trying not to descend into a panic from the rapid beat of your heart. You know the process could take a few minutes to complete, but you’re not sure you’ll even survive the wait in the end. 

You grip onto the straps of your bag to try and ground yourself. You’re having a hard time believing that you made it this far, that you might actually see Rose again after years of trying and failing. You’ve finally made enough noise, tried enough times, that your efforts are coming to some kind of fruition, and the miniscule seed of hope you’ve been keeping in your chest for so many years starts to bloom under your skin for the first time. 

You run through a series of exhausting emotions - panic, hope, anticipation, back to panic - while waiting for Karkat to finish the ritual, and you notice that the air around his body has warmed considerably. You can feel the change in temperature even from your distance, and the usually subtle light that seems to emanate from Karkat’s skin becomes much less subtle after just a few moments. He starts glowing in the middle of your backyard, a bright star in the center of an otherwise bleak landscape, and goosebumps start to raise over your skin at the sight of him. 

His face is just visible through the veil of light surrounding him, and you can see his concentrated expression, his furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips. Where you expect the sound of rushing wind or popping electricity you’re met with almost complete silence, and Karkat’s voice rings out to you clear as day through the cloud of power around him. 

“This isn’t right.”

Your heart falls out of your chest and straight through to Alternia. Karkat’s tone is unsure, confused, like he’s encountering something wholly unexpected. You try to ask what’s wrong, what you can do to fix it, but you can’t push the words up from where they sit like rocks in the bottom of your stomach. 

“I can feel her,” he starts, “she’s in Prospit, but I-” He tilts his head as if listening for something and the light around him flickers for a moment, his expression pinching uncomfortably. “Something’s… blocking me? I can’t get through to her.” 

You can’t feel your pulse anymore, it’s going too fast. Karkat seems pained by whatever is interrupting his divine intervention, and panic is starting to rush into your throat. You don’t know what you’ll do if you fail again, if you leave Rose in the afterlife without the chance to tell her you’re sorry, without being able to undo the consequences of your own actions - 

“This doesn’t make any fucking sense,” Karkat starts saying, but he’s interrupted by the light around him suddenly intensifying, so bright that you have to cover your eyes. A gust of heat bursts out from Karkat’s circle and rushes towards you, bringing with it the blustering sound of wind and the acetic smell of burnt earth. The light dissipates as quickly as it appeared, and when you blink your eyes open you find Karkat on the ground some feet away from Rose’s things, a black scorch mark singeing the grass where he once sat. Light colored smoke is rising from his skin, and the normally dark tattoos curling around his arms have turned a hot, molten red. 

“Holy shit,” Karkat breathes, hand on his chest like his own heart is pounding. “That’s never happened - that’s not supposed to happen-”

You run to his side and reach out to help him, but his skin is so searingly hot that you recoil on instinct. “Fuck,” you cry, cradling your hand to your chest. “What the fuck just happened, are you okay?” 

“I’m fine, I’m fine, I just-” Karkat stands on his own and takes a few pointed steps away from you so he doesn’t risk burning you again. “It’s like she kicked me out of my own fucking domain and let the door hit me on my way out - I could barely connect with her soul and even when I did it felt like she was hiding under some kind of veil, like she was resisting me entirely and it was _easy_ for her. Souls aren’t supposed to do that, Dave, they shouldn’t be able to shove me away so easily, that’s the whole point of people like me existing in the first fucking place.” 

“What the hell does that mean?” you demand, and your voice sounds crass even to you. You try to force your tone into something that doesn’t give away your fear as obviously, but you don’t quite have it in you to succeed. “Is she okay, can you still get her back?” 

“I…” Karkat’s fingers thread into his hair in a gesture of pure shock and confusion for so long that his tattoos cool to their normal black and his skin stops radiating blazing heat. His eyes flick around on the ground, searching for an explanation that’s not there, and when he looks back up at you his eyes are a stunning, godly red. “I think she’s alive.” 

“That’s bullshit,” you argue immediately; the notion is so absurd, so entirely ludicrous that you refuse to entertain the thought for even a second. “You said she was in Prospit-” 

“She is!” Karkat confirms, though his tone remains incredulous. “She’s there but she’s… she’s too strong to be dead, no human soul has the kind of power to openly reject a god’s intervention like that, especially if they’ve been dead for as many years as she has - dark magic or clairvoyance or whatever weird shit she was into be damned. I don’t know how the fuck she managed to slip by Sollux and every other god who monitors the Corpse Capital but she’s down there somehow and she’s _alive,_ Dave, I’m telling you.” 

“There’s no way.” You shake your head. You can’t believe Karkat is trying to play such a sick joke on you. “There’s no fucking way, I _saw_ her-” 

“Humans - _live humans_ \- have made it into the Corpse Capital before,” Karkat counters, reminding you of a fact your learned at the very beginning of your journey. “Humans and cockroaches are remarkably similar in that having one invade your space normally means there are hundreds to follow and that’s why we had to keep moving the fucking doors around, it’s not impossible that she-” 

“ _Stop!_ ” you demand, throat straining with the force of your exclamation. You’ve had enough - you’ve failed to revive your sister _again_ and you won’t play games with Karkat about whether or not she’s alive. You’ve had five long, lonely years to think about all the different ways she could’ve survived, could’ve pushed and screamed and clawed her way out of the afterlife, and none of them have held any weight in the end. Frustration and despair and anger start to flood into your chest like a tidal wave, hot tears springing to your eyes before you can stop them, and when you speak again you words ring out in a furious, anguished pitch. 

“I _know_ she’s dead,” you cry out. Karkat’s lips part at the sound of your voice but you talk over his stuttered concerns. “I know she’s dead, alright, I watched her die, I saw her body _disappear into the fucking ground_ because _I’m_ the one who got her killed!” 

It’s a terrible admission. It hurts to speak truth to it, and it hurts to see Karkat’s reaction to it, and it hurts to remember it. Karkat gives you a blank look, nothing but the sound of your own rapid breathing filling the air, and the tears come steady down your cheeks in burning rivulets. Karkat takes a step back, then shakes his head and comes towards you, reaching out a hand only for you to avoid his touch. 

“What did you do?” he asks, barely above a whisper. His hand remains poised in the air for you to take, noticeably trembling. 

You close your eyes, and take a deep breath. The tears continue to fall but you stop being able to feel them. The scent of scorched earth drifts away from you and the heat of the air shifts to a less stifling ambience. Your heart slows, your breath evens, and you start to remember.

* * *

It was an accident, is the thing. It’s not like you had woken up that morning and decided that you were going to kill your sister - no, it was just… an accident. An accident of the tragic and deadly variety, the kind that seems to have followed you throughout most of your life, and an accident that would make itself comfortable in the most vulnerable parts of your mind for years after the fact.

You had been watching Rose deteriorate for months by then. You never really understood what exactly she was into - something dangerous you’re pretty sure, magic or otherwise - but you could see what it did to her, could tell in her pale skin and foggy eyes that something was starting to pull her away. When she wasn’t staring into the middle distance as you spoke to her, gaze burning a hole right through you, she was muttering under her breath like she was talking to someone you couldn’t see or scribbling frantic, illegible runes in her journal. She would spend hours and hours at the library, far longer than her shifts typically demanded, and that afternoon things finally came to a stunning, disastrous head. 

You'd found her in the yard, standing stock still and looking like death while she clutched onto the leatherbound book you had spent so many days carefully making for her. She had become so frail over the last few weeks that you were surprised to see her standing as rigid as she was, firmly planted in the center of the yard and gripping onto her journal with enough force that her knuckles had begun to turn white. From her mouth poured sounds that made your skin crawl, chanted in several voices that were not her own, and though the thing you were looking at was certainly your sister there was something about the shape of her body that was profoundly, disturbingly wrong. 

It’s like she was collapsing into herself. Where her stomach should’ve been there was something you can only think to call a void - a deep, emanating blackness that pulsed like a heartbeat and pulled at the edges of her form until it warped into trailing, clouded tendrils. The substance moved as though it were alive, reaching out from the pit of Rose’s body like it meant to pull everything else into its grasp until there was nothing left, a calculated entropy dripping out of her skin and pulling her apart. Like ink through water it curled and writhed towards you, flowing from Rose’s mouth and nose, twisting in your direction as if to beckon you, and every movement it made was horribly welcoming. 

For a split second you thought about letting it take you, had considered walking into the crater that had made itself a home between Rose’s ribs and succumbing to whatever warm, comfortable, endless existence would greet you there. But the appealing haze, though it dulled your senses and grazed gentle fingertips over your skin and whispered sickly sweet promises in your ear, failed to hinder the part of you that would always care more about Rose than yourself. Through the fog of confusion and fear you had been able to parse the only thing you needed to know - something was wrong with your sister and you were the only one around to fix it.

From her journal rose a black, ashy smoke, seemingly manifested by the jagged symbols that had started to glow like embers on the pages of her notebook. The words clawing their way out of her throat, damp and distorted as if they were choking her, seeped into the air with the same rhythm as the symbols flickering with pulsating heat. After taking only a second to break free of whatever trance the mist had put you under, you were closing the distance between yourself and Rose and trying to wrench the journal out of her hands with determined, shaking fingers. 

You’re fuzzy on the details after this point. You remember a searing pain in your hand and a burst of light so blistering that it stained your vision for days to come. You remember colliding with the ground and having consciousness leave you for an indeterminate amount of time, waking up some seconds or minutes later with a terrible headache and a sharp throb under the skin of your palm. Your vision blurred with pain and confusion, and through your haze of disorientation you thought you could make out a figure crouched over Rose some feet away from you. In your hopeful naivety you had thought that maybe someone had come to help you, that whoever was reaching out for Rose’s body was doing so in an attempt to rouse her from unconsciousness, to assess her wounds, to fix her. But then the figure disappeared into thin air like it never existed at all, shrouded in anonymity, and suddenly you felt much less hopeful. 

You had crawled towards her over the grass, relieved to find her body no longer corrupted and misshapen by whatever substance had forced its way out of her, but the moment your fingers brushed her skin the relief had twisted and warped into sickly, nauseating fear. She was too cold. She was too cold, even with how ill she had been, even if she had been unconscious for some time already, she was too cold to still be alive. You could tell as soon as you touched her that she was already gone, could tell even before then, but you still checked for her pulse, still shook her as if she were asleep and just needed to be woken up, still called her name and held her face and asked her not to leave you before you’d started to cry. 

None of your tears were going to bring Rose back, none of your pleads to merciless gods were going to be heard, no one was coming to help you, but you couldn’t stop the grief that wracked through your body and tore through your throat and slid over the cold smoothness of Rose’s skin. You had pulled her against you and sobbed her name and waited for the cruel joke being pulled on you to end, but her body had just gotten colder in your arms as you called for her to come back to you. You choked on your apologies, repeated them over and over like prayers until before long you had cried yourself hoarse. 

You don’t know how long you sat there with her, but it wasn’t long enough. You didn’t have enough time - to grieve, to apologize - there was just never enough time. You started to feel her pull away from you before you had the chance to realize what was happening, and though you had clinged to her with desperate hands and begged her not to go and offered yourself up in exchange she slowly began to sink into the earth regardless of your pleas. It only took a moment for her to descend into the ground, swallowed up by rocks and dirt and sent to the afterlife without any fanfare or hesitation. You had reached for her at the very end, trying to grab her hand and pull her back to you before it was too late, but all you came away with was a handful of grass and the sour, stinging realization that you had killed your sister. 

You sat on the ground for a while afterwords, numb and cold and trembling. Maybe an hour passed. Maybe a day. No one came looking for you, and no gods descended from Skaia to help you, and no one told you how to live without you. And Rose was dead. And you were alone again.

* * *

“I… Dave, it was just an accident,” Karkat says, trying to comfort you even though you’ve just admitted to one of the most heinous mistakes of your life. “There’s no way you could’ve known what would happen, you were just trying to help-” 

“But I didn’t,” you interrupt, and your voice has been reduced to a rasping mumble. “And I fucking killed her.” 

Karkat shakes his head, confusion still casting a shadow over his face, and his eyes dart around the scenery as he tries to make sense of everything. The burned patch of grass he had been sitting on is still lightly smoking and some of Rose’s things have been scorched and misplaced from the blast, scattered around the yard in a frenzy of debris. One of her journals has been thrown open by the wind, clean and smooth and seemingly untouched by the heat of Karkat’s ritual, and its fluttering pages reveal a set of sharp, angular symbols that pulse a glowing orange. 

“Who took her?” Karkat asks suddenly. You look up from where you had been staring at the flickering journal and find that Karkat’s eyes have hardened with realization. “Her body,” he adds when you don’t respond. “You said you saw someone come for her.”

“I don’t know.” Your memories of that day are disturbingly clear, but you were never able to make out who exactly you saw crouching over your sister’s corpse. 

“My dad was gone already,” he points out. “Was it the Condesce? Aradia maybe?” 

“I…” You don’t recall any golden horns or luminous gray skin; from what you can remember the person seemed… vaguely human, even. “I don’t know, it was just some dude-” 

“Dave, listen to me.” Karkat comes towards you and puts his hands on the side of your face, forcing you to look at him even when you try to tilt your head away. “I know this is fucked up, okay, I know this is pretty much the worst possible outcome that could’ve happened and that there was no fucking way we could’ve been prepared for it. And I know your smooth human brain can’t even begin to comprehend the intricacies of life and death and what it means to be in between the two or how any of this shit even works, but _I_ can. This kind of convoluted nonsense is the whole reason why I exist, it’s why Calliope fluttered down from the heavens and hit my dad on the head with her magic fucking wand or whatever and cursed me to manifest in this plane of existence in the first place.” 

You can’t think straight. “Karkat-” 

“I’m saying you have to trust me,” he adds, getting to the point. He gives you a little shake to emphasize his words. “I don’t know what kind of bizarre human occult bullshit your sister devolved into, I don’t know what deity corrupted her to the point of sending her to the Corpse Capital, I don’t know why it seems like your family in particular has been wrought with so many disastrous, life-changing tragedies, but I know how the afterlife works and I know that _Rose is alive_.” 

You blink and your eyes flood with tears again. You can hardly make sense of anything that’s going on, your head is starting to hurt from the onslaught of conflicting information and twisted emotions and the desperate need for something in your fucking life to work out for once - but Karkat’s hands have a remarkable effect on your state of mind. You feel your pulse spike just for a moment before settling again, and Karkat’s eyes hold your gaze steady while he presses comforting fingertips into the back of your neck. 

And you do trust him. You trust him with your life - as evidenced by the fact that he was, at one point, literally responsible for preventing your death - and you trust him with Rose’s life too. However much your panic-addled brain tries to convince you otherwise, you know Karkat would never intentionally mislead you over something as serious as your sister being alive, and slowly you start to feel yourself calm down. You nod a couple times, to remind yourself where you are, to feel like you’re in your body again, to let Karkat know that you’ve backed up from where you’d been standing at the precipice of a complete breakdown. His eyes brighten a bit once he sees that you’ve regained your composure, and the unbearably soft look he gives you makes your chest hurt. 

“What do we do now?” you ask, voice gravelly, and tired. 

Karkat gives you a steady nod. “We go get her.” 

He pulls away from you then, and though you ache for the warmth of his hands you stay rooted in your spot. A hot spike of fear pushes through your stomach at the implications of his words, and you swallow down the acidic dread that keeps trying to crawl out of your throat. 

“We’ll have to find the doors again,” you mutter. “I don’t think I can-” 

“I’m an underworld deity, Dave,” Karkat reminds you. He comes up behind you and rifles around in your bag for something, breath ghosting against the back of your neck. “I’ve got a shortcut.” 

When he moves to stand in front of you again you notice with a start that he’s holding your hunting knife, which you’ve barely had to use during your whole journey. Your mind races with what he could possibly need it for, and you have to stop yourself from grabbing his wrist when he opens up his hand and unceremoniously drags the knife across his palm. 

It takes some effort, but Karkat manages to draw blood after a moment of pressing the blade to his skin, not even flinching as he cuts his own flesh while you look on in mild horror. From his gray skin seeps thick, smooth blood, dripping an overly saturated candy red onto the grass, and he curls his hand into a fist to squeeze more of the bright liquid onto the ground until it forms a small puddle in the dirt. When he seems satisfied with the amount, he hands the blade back to you and you stare in awe as the cut marring his skin starts to heal almost immediately. 

With his non-bloodied hand, Karkat pulls you towards him and threads his fingers through yours. He looks up at you with determined eyes, the same sweet, inhuman color as his blood, and gives you a confident nod. 

“You might want to hold your breath,” he warns, and then you plummet into the ground. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy a plot twist! or two maybe i guess technically?? ive been going back and forth on whether or not this chapter is completely stupid and ridiculous or if its one of the best plot driven things ive done but......... jurys still out
> 
> this is where things Pick Up so to speak and we get Into It soon so thats going to be fun!! everything should make sense by the end but dont quote me on that im not a professional by any means lmao
> 
> i hope u guys enjoyed this one! v long chapter to cover a lot of exposition/plot without making yall wait with a cliffhanger
> 
> thank u for reading!! hope everyone is staying safe and sane <3


	16. Chapter 16

Despite its ever-changing entrance, Alternia itself has remained remarkably unchanged since you’ve been gone. You and Karkat fall through the thick red-brick ceiling and land in a heap in front of the doors of death, Karkat steady on his feet while you gracefully unbalance onto your ass. He helps you stand and you cough up a concerning amount of small pebbles and clumps of dirt, head spinning from the flurry of movement and near crushing pressure that was your godly shortcut to the afterlife. A worm undulates out of the leg of your pants as Karkat brushes the debris off your back and you shudder, taking in the scenery. 

It’s all the same. The same brightly colored doors - one a hopeless, desperate purple and the other an eye-watering yellow - inlaid carefully into the same deep red stone of Alternia’s entrance. To your left is a familiar hallway, one you remember leading to Karkat’s mess of an office space, and in front of you is the multicolored, uncomfortable looking throne of the Psiionic. Except - 

“ _Wow_ ,” Sollux drawls from his lazy perch on the throne, posture as unenthused and indifferent as ever. “Look what the fucking cat dragged in.” 

“For fuck’s sake,” Karkat starts, clearly anticipating a long-winded exchange. He opens his mouth to speak again but Sollux interrupts him. 

“Did the human fuck up so badly that you decided to give him a one-way ticket to Derse complete with a godly escort?” he asks. “Man, I’m shocked, honestly, really such a shame for you since you couldn’t help licking the ground he walked on the second you saw him. Kinda embarrassing on your part but what else is new.” 

“I don’t have time for this,” Karkat declares, and he pulls you against his side defensively. “I need you to open Prospit and let us through, don’t ask me why-”

“Why?” 

Karkat huffs and throws up a hand in exasperation. “Because I’m dealing with a bunch of bullshit human shenanigans and the amount of zany afterlife hijinks I’ve had to wade through in the last few hours is enough to kill someone of a lesser constitution than me,” he explains quickly. “I seriously don’t have time to sit here and inflate your ego, as fun as that always is, so if you can dig deep and find it in yourself to stop being an asshole for twenty seconds and just open the fucking door, that’d be great!” 

“All this effort just for this fucking guy?” Sollux adds, flicking a hand in your direction. “Is his stroke game so good that you’re gonna make me break the rules, dude? You know I’d never mess with the sanctity of the afterlife, Karkat, I can’t disappoint Calliope just for this random human you were desperate enough to pack bond with.” 

“Do you remember when your dad died?” Karkat says, and suddenly Sollux’s expression drops out from under him. The hairs on the back of your neck start to raise and your ears pop with the pressure of electricity in the air. Karkat seems unperturbed. 

“Karkat,” Sollux tries. 

“Because I remember,” he continues. “I remember how _devastated_ you were, how you were so wracked with grief that you decided to bury your sorrow balls deep in Aradia for days at a time, letting anyone you wanted through whichever doors you felt like just so you could reach your quota for the day and then fuck off to seek the warmth of her _friendly companionship_ -” 

“Dude-” 

“And I remember how the resulting clusterfuck was so astronomical in proportion that it took me and Kanaya _months_ to sort everything out,” Karkat recalls. “We had to weed through the entirety of Prospit twice over just to make sure we moved every murderer and rapist you let through back into Derse where they belonged, nevermind the amount of terrified children and helpless grandmas we had to get out of hell on our own - do you remember that? Do you remember how I wasted valuable time covering your ass to make sure the Condense didn’t rightfully cull you and how I told you that you fucking owed me one?” 

Sollux’s eyes have started to glow behind his strange, colored glasses. When he speaks again it’s through gritted teeth. “I might… recall that, yeah.” 

“Well.” Karkat gives him an all too pleasant smile. “This is the one.” 

There’s a pause in which the static in the air fizzles out all at once, squealing in your ear like a whistle, until Sollux sniffs uncomfortably and nods his head towards the yellow door to his right. 

“Fine.” 

The door opens with a gentle gust of wind and a warm, twinkling light. Karkat tugs you along by the sleeve of your shirt and passes by Sollux with a cheerful middle finger in his direction, to which he responds with an equally enthusiastic sneer. You’re pulled through the divinely glistening door with a lighthearted comment about the obvious sexual tension between the two on your tongue, but it fades away the second you make it through to the other side. 

Prospit is almost exactly how the stories describe it. You were told tales of the Golden City as a child, stared in awe at paintings and murals depicting its shining spires and shimmering landscapes, but none of them could possibly do it justice. Tears spring to your eyes the second they land on the brilliant scenery of Propsit, and whether they’re from wonder or the almost painful brightness of the city is difficult for you to determine. Everything is a rich, radiant gold - from the towering buildings, to the bricks paving the winding streets, to the decadent gowns adorning its citizens - and you have to blink several times just to clear your vision of residual tears and shining images staining the inside of your eyelids. 

And there are people _everywhere_. So many you couldn’t even begin to count them all, filling every last space in the sprawling, endless cityscape, flitting around in groups and orderly lines, coming near you but never quite brushing up against your skin. You unconsciously start to hold your breath from being around so many people - so many young, healthy, bright people - and you only manage to refocus your thoughts when you remember that you and Karkat are going to have to sift through several billion golden-clad souls just to find the one you’re looking for. 

Karkat’s grip on your hand has turned noticeably tighter since you passed through the doors, and when you turn to look at him he’s startlingly pale, skin an ashen gray. His eyes can’t seem to pick something to focus on, irises darting around like he’s a cornered animal, and the look on his face is nothing short of pained. 

“Karkat?” you ask quietly, and you’re surprised at how well you can hear your own voice despite there being an immeasurable amount of conversation surrounding you. 

“I don’t come in here a lot,” he mutters. You see him swallow uncomfortably. “It’s always really fucking overwhelming to the senses, don’t know why they had to pick piss yellow to be their color scheme when a nice, muted black and white would have more than sufficed.” 

“There’s a lot of people here,” you comment dumbly. 

“Yeah,” Karkat responds. “About half of every human who has ever existed is down here. You’d be surprised how evenly the Derse/Prospit split is skewed, almost like it was designed that way by some kind of higher power or something.” 

“Imagine that.” 

You look around and take note of every different person you see, and find some comfort in how happy and relaxed everyone seems. No one has even turned your direction or noticed that a god has entered the premises, and you can only assume it’s because none of them have any reason to care, because all of their pain and worries and stress have been ebbed away by the city itself, by the fact that they made it to the good half of the great beyond. You feel the soreness and pain in your own muscles draining out of you, and the headache that’s been threatening to bloom behind your eyebrow seems to disappear within just a few moments. You take a deep breath, and feel your lungs clear evenly. 

“How many do you think there are?” you ask. 

Karkat winces and then gives you a tense smile. “Something like 42 billion,” he says, and you let out a rattled breath. “And I can feel every last one of them.” 

“How are we going to find Rose?” you ask as a terrible sense of dread drapes itself over you; you really don’t want to be stuck in the afterlife for the next three hundred years playing the world’s worst game of hide and seek just to find your sister. “Shit - we didn’t bring any of her journals, how are we-” 

“We don’t need them.” Karkat sounds so assured it puts your panic on pause. “We’ve got you.” 

You blink. “What do you mean?” 

Karkat looks at you, and his gaze has started to glow so brightly that it almost hurts to look back at him. “As far as things that Rose had a connection with... you’re the best we’ve got,” he explains. “You’re basically a giant, flashing red arrow that’ll point us right to her.” 

He squeezes your hand to make his point and you steel yourself for just a moment before giving him a firm nod. “Lead the way, then.” 

Karkat pulls you along at a determined pace, only ever stopping briefly to reorient his trajectory or consider which direction to pick when you reach a fork in your path. No one pays you any mind as the two of you hop, skip, and jump throughout Prospit, despite how dull and washed out you must look in comparison to everyone else. Your eyes only start to adjust to the overly bright scenery maybe half an hour into your journey, and even still you find the golden hues and ever sparkling atmosphere of the afterlife just a little too much to handle at times. You end up having to take breaks on occasion, using Karkat as a palette cleanser and easing your senses by taking in his simple blacks and grays against the overwhelming environment. His horns blend into the background while his eyes stand out like an animal’s in the dark, and his visage brings you calm when you start to feel fear twist in your stomach again. 

You don’t know how long the two of you traipse through Prospit, but it feels like forever. The place is sprawling, endless, seemingly expanding even as you walk through it, and you never pass by the same road or building or person more than once. Time passes oddly, and as you continue walking you expect to feel hunger, or tiredness, or anything, but instead you just feel… vaguely alive. You can feel your heart beating, you’re more aware of the blood in your veins than you ever have been, but the pains and discomfort of human life never quite make their way into your body. Your breath doesn’t hasten, you don’t break a sweat, your feet never start to hurt - all of the usual sensations you’ve grown to expect are little more than an echo, an idea, and it warps your perception of time until you’re not sure if you’ve been walking for hours or days. It’s only when the thought starts to make you dizzy that you wonder if it’s been even longer than that, and if the swirling in your stomach is starvation or uneasiness. 

“Are we getting close?” you ask Karkat, and though you expect your voice to be hoarse from underuse, it is exceptionally clear. 

He stops suddenly, and cranes his neck up to look at something. You follow his gaze and are met with an extraordinary tower, a golden spire stretching up farther than you can perceive, topped with a perfect sphere and one, small window. It’s unlike any of the other architecture you’ve passed, far more intricate with its carved walls and circular design, and the very sight of it brings you an unusual feeling of peace. You squeeze Karkat’s hand, and his skin is perfectly warm. 

“Yeah,” he says, and he pulls you inside. 

You find out the hard way that the main part of the tower consists entirely of a spiral staircase. You sigh at yet another roadblock barring you from finding Rose, but Karkat doesn’t let you dwell for long before he’s pulling you onto the first stair. The ascent starts quickly and neither of you seem to lose any speed, though your teeth remain clenched in anticipation of soreness in your thighs and calves, or burning in your lungs from the effort of scaling such a monumental amount of stairs. Instead you feel nothing but heady determination and an odd feeling in your gut, and your pace remains sharp even after several minutes (hours?) of making the climb. 

When you eventually make it to the apex of the stairwell you find that there’s no door - only a carved, decorative archway that leads into a circular room at the very top of the spire. All of its furnishings are the same shining gold as everything else in Prospit and it’s decorated with all the fittings of a common bedroom, though with an added decadence. There’s a four-post bed large enough to fit several people, an enormous vanity with a mirror that reflects images almost clearer than reality, and a massive writing desk with a chair the size of a throne in the center of the room. 

And, at the writing desk, is Rose. 

She’s not sitting in the large, plush chair, instead bent over the desk with her hands on its surface as if studying something, and she’s adorned in the same golden robes as everyone else. You can’t see her face while she’s turned away from you, but even from your distance you can tell it’s her. Her skin is a warm, deep brown, nothing like the gray pallor it once was, and her hair has regained the shine and elegance it had before you started to lose her. The brightness of the room around her makes her glow and the golden environment bounces off of her form, shimmering in her hair and saturating the undertones in her skin and making her look stunningly _alive_. 

“Rose?” you call out into the room, voice little more than a whisper. 

She turns to you, and you feel yourself startle as the more dramatic changes in her appearance become apparent to you. There’s a shock of black interrupting the light blonde of her hair, a streak running from the side of her head down to the locks behind her ear. She’s taller, noticeably so, maybe even taller than you now. Her cheeks are less full than you remember, youthful roundness having left behind a strong, sharp jaw. She’s… _older_ , you realize. She’s grown up in the time that you’ve been gone, grown up without you around to see it, and the person standing in front of you isn’t the same young girl you’ve been trying to save for so many years. 

She looks at you, and you look back at her, and your gaze meets the beautiful, celestial, inhuman purple of her eyes. 

“Dave, I-” 

You meet each other in the middle of the room. Rose’s body is a warm, grounding presence against yours, and you can feel her steady heartbeat where your fingers press into her skin. Her breath stutters straight through to your own chest and tears spring into your eyes as you revel in how inconceivably, wonderfully alive she is in your arms. It doesn’t make any sense - none of this makes any sense - and a sob finds its way out of your throat as you laugh at the absurdity of it all and cry from the relief flooding out of you at the same time. It’s been so long; you’ve spent so many years having guilt and loneliness eat away at you and now you finally have Rose back, you can finally pick up where you left off, you can finally live again. And it doesn’t matter if none of it makes any fucking sense, it doesn’t matter if you spent days or years or lifetimes trying to find her, all that matters is that you have her and she’s _alive_. 

“Holy shit,” you choke, pulling away from her after some time. “You’re alive.” 

“I should say the same about you,” she adds as she wipes her own tears, and it’s so nice to hear her voice that you almost start to cry again. “How in Calliope’s name did you get down here, I thought-” 

“Who cares about that,” you wave off. You take her hand and try to tug her in the direction of the door, “Let’s get you the fuck out of here,” but she resists. 

“Dave, wait, I - I can’t.” 

“What the hell do you mean you can’t?” you ask incredulously, pulse quickening. You can only assume that she needs to gather up all the weird papers she has scattered around her desk or take one more longing look out of her dramatic tower window before she leaves. You don’t want to think about anything else. “Look, I’m the one who got you down here in the first place so now I’m here to take you back home, alright, I know you’re probably embarrassed about having to be rescued and all but we can deal with that when we get out of here.” 

“You didn’t - that’s not why I’m here,” she states, and the confusion in her tone is obvious. 

“What?” Your heart is starting to pound, and the discomforting feeling in the bottom of your stomach has returned tenfold. “I fucked up your wacked out spell or whatever, remember? I mean, maybe you don’t because you were unconscious for most of it and probably definitely have brain damage but-” 

“The spell was _supposed_ to bring me here,” she explains quickly, eyes widening at your words. “You didn’t alter its effectiveness at all, in fact it was _very_ effective-” 

“I saw you die.” You loosen your grip on her and let your hand fall to your side, your skin suddenly too warm. “I saw your eyes roll into the back of your head and I saw you get swallowed up by the fucking ground and you’re telling me that was _on purpose?_ ” 

“Well - yes, but-” 

“You left me,” you conclude. Rose falters over her words for a moment until you shake your head and take a step back from her. “You left me to come down here, you _stayed_ down here, and it was all on purpose?” 

“Dave, listen,” Rose tries, voice lowered. She holds her hands up as if to placate you, but it only makes you angrier. “This is more complicated than you think it is.” 

“Of course it is,” you say, throwing your arms up. “Everything’s always so fucking complicated with you, because you never _tell me anything_. Don’t you think it would’ve been a good idea to let your only family member know that you were going on a suicide mission to Alternia before you died in front of his fucking eyes and made him think it was his fault for five years?” 

“If I had told you, you would’ve tried to stop me-” 

“Yes! Absolutely!” Your tone has peaked into a shout. “Because that’s fucking insane! Why the hell would you come down here on purpose, why-” 

“Dave, please-” 

“Why would you leave me?” Your voice breaks and you feel tears prickle at your eyes, hot and angry and stinging. Your heart is pounding in your chest, so hard you can’t even think straight, and the sound of your blood in your ears has made it difficult to hear anything other than your own voice, pain tingeing all of your words. 

“I…” Rose doesn’t seem able to come up with a clear answer for you, and it makes your stomach twist. 

“You left me by myself, Rose - do you have any idea how long I looked for you?” The air in the room is too hot, suffocating, and the feverish pitch of your voice echoes painfully in your head. “I spent _years_ trying to get you back, I spent every fucking day thinking that this was all my fault, thinking that I had killed you - and for _what?_ So you could dick around in the Afterlife with your fucking batshit spells and leave me alone to think that I was responsible for killing the only family I ever had? I lost all my money and ran around the fucking country and thought about offing myself just to have a chance to find you and tell you I’m _sorry-_ ” 

“Dave, _listen to me_ ,” Rose pleads, but you can hardly hear her. 

“Did you think I would just get over it?” you demand. It’s become difficult to catch your breath, and the pain in your lungs that you were expecting in the stairwell comes to you all at once. “Do you think I spent the last five years all hunky fucking dory on my own, did you think I would just _forget?_ Is that how little I mean to you, Rose, that you didn’t even stop to consider that I might _miss you?_ ” 

You have more to say, years of pent up desperation and anger and emptiness clawing their way out of you, but you suddenly gasp for air. You can’t breathe - or you’ve forgotten how - and the heat of the room has made you sweaty, rivulets dripping down your forehead in sticky twos and fours. It’s hot, too hot, and your head is starting to swim with dizziness, so much so that you stumble backwards. Your stomach lurches like you’re going to vomit and it makes black and white spots flicker in your vision. Your eyes squeeze shut at the sharp, rushing headache piercing at your temples, and you let out a groan as the pain overwhelms you. 

Over the sound of your pounding heart you can just make out Rose’s voice, speaking to Karkat behind you. She tells him in a calm tone, as if having anticipated your episode, “You’ll have to catch him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the part of the story where theres a plot! im just as shocked as you guys are
> 
> im really excited to get going with all the plot stuff and theres gonna be some new characters popping in and everything im psyched for it, i just wish i had more time to write!! hopefully during the holidays ill be able to bust out some stuff a bit faster, thank u guys for bearing with me and the slow updates in the meantime
> 
> hope everyone is doing okay with the holidays coming up and covid still happening. wishing everyone a safe and happy winter and thank u all again for always being so supportive!


	17. Chapter 17

You think you fall, but you’re not sure. You feel your body collapse but where you expect to meet the floor there’s instead an odd tumbling sensation, as if you’re doing a somersault and the world is twisting itself around you. Your stomach jerks at the feeling and then as suddenly as the discomfort arrived it’s just… gone. You open your eyes, and you’re no longer standing in the golden tower of Propsit. 

You’re in the backyard of your old house, the one you lived in with Bro, and on the ground in front of you are the inexplicable yet undeniable bodies of your younger self and your dead brother. You close your eyes for a moment, willing the scene away, but when you open them again everything is still very much there - the blood and the bruises and the stench of death, and the painful memory of it all. 

That’s all it is then, a memory. It has to be, otherwise - 

A third person manifests seemingly from nothing, and you take a surprised step back. If this is a memory then the person should be Karkat’s father, coming to rouse you from unconsciousness and take your brother away to Derse, but the figure that has appeared seems unusually human. You step closer, careful not to make any noise, and your heart almost jumps out of your throat when you see who exactly has interrupted your recollection. 

It’s you. From a few months ago, presumably, before you had tanned quite as much, before your hair reached its current untameable length, odd to look at from your angle but still indisputably _you_. You watch in frozen shock as your former self reaches down to wipe blood off the cheek of your former-former self, and the dizzying pain in your head returns when you try to make any sense of it. Something goes taut behind your naval and you’re suddenly being pulled down to the ground again, consciousness little more than a thin thread in your brain until your find yourself right side up again somewhere entirely different. 

You’re falling. You’re upright, your feet poised as though you’re on solid ground, but the wind rushing in your ears and the clouds seeping moisture into your clothes make you realize with a nauseous lurch that you are plummeting out of the sky. You flail as you try to catch your balance, as you brace for some kind of fall, and it’s only after you’ve managed to twist yourself into a headfirst plunge towards the ground that you realize you’re not falling alone. 

Beside you are two large, golden capsules, shining in the flickering light of the afternoon sun as they fall to earth. Your panic stops almost as quickly as it started, confusion momentarily rendering you still, and as you squint to get a better look at the strange pods you find that their golden exteriors are slowly, steadily burning away into blackness. The metallic containers are being scorched by the friction and incredible speed at which they’re falling, and when you reach out to one you can feel the extraordinary heat radiating off of it. You shake your head and try to make sense of everything, try to comprehend whatever fucked up Prospit time vortex you’ve fallen into, but you come up virtually empty. 

Your descent is hastened the longer you fall, wind and ice beginning to tear at your skin, and before you reach the ground one of the golden pods shoots off in another direction altogether, leaving just you and a solitary, nearly blackened orb. You look down in panic and see that the ground is coming to meet you, your eyes squeezing shut as you prepare yourself for a likely deadly impact that strangely never comes. Instead you hear the ear-shattering boom of the capsule hitting the ground, hot air and shrapnel coming up to scratch at your face, and then your feet meet the grass with a feather-light touch. Your fall seems to end suddenly and with little explanation, and you drift easily to the ground some feet away from the smoking, ruined debris of an impact crater. In the center lies the now scorched black pod, squealing with excess heat and the sound of something like a baby crying.

You catch your breath and try to find your bearings. You look around and find yourself in a field you don’t recognize, though the scent in the air is an intimate, eye-watering smell that is quintessentially that of the Copper District. The scenery that greets you is as unfamiliar as it is repetitive, with green grass and tall trees surrounding you that could be from anywhere else in the country, and the only thing breaking up the monotonous environment is the catastrophic looking crater in the center of the grass. 

You want to reach out to the strange pod to retrieve whatever is inside, but the sound of footsteps approaching brings you pause. Fight or flight instincts kick in and you scurry away from the scene, hiding near the treeline where you’ll be safe from the prying eyes of whoever is advancing on you. The quick movements draw your attention to your arms and face, where the deep, stinging cuts from your journey through the sky are healing in front of your eyes, skin mending and blood drying before you even have the chance to notice the pain. Your teeth clench at the odd sensation, and your last dregs of sanity and understanding leave you in a quick burst. 

This isn’t a memory. You would remember if you fell out of the sky and landed in the middle of fuck all nowhere with a giant golden capsule, which means that this is… something else entirely. You can only assume that you’ve fainted on Prospit and the resulting brain damage has given you extremely lucid hallucinations about shit that doesn’t make any sense, or that Rose is fucking with you somehow in the demented, abstruse way that she was always so fond of. Either of those explanations would at least make an ounce of sense, and would bring you more peace than the idea that you’ve been inexplicably transported to a place you don’t know, witnessing events you don’t understand. 

The footsteps grow louder, heavy and purposeful, and when the person approaching emerges from the treeline your heart stops with a terrified thud. 

It’s your brother. It’s your brother - young and alive and intimidating - coming towards the crater with an ever-present expression of boredom and indifference. You hold your breath as he examines the pod and gives it a light kick as if inspecting the carcass of a dead animal, and the sound of a crying child rings out into the air, shrill and echoing under the metal container. 

You grit your teeth; it’s been a long time since you’ve seen your brother alive, but the fear it sends rushing through your veins is all too familiar, almost nostalgic in how much your body remembers the sensation. You can’t help the pounding of your heart or the way your palms have started to sweat, nevermind the nausea threatening to drag itself out of your stomach and onto the ground. You’re only just able to keep it together, a hand pressed over your mouth to stifle your ragged breathing, and you manage to keep your brother’s attention off of you for the time being. 

The vessel has opened from his proddings, and the piercing sound of a baby wailing becomes more pronounced as he pulls an inscrutably unharmed child out of the smoking ruins. You squint from your vantage point, stomach curling as the inklings of understanding greet the edges of your brain, and when you finally get a clear look at the baby your feet nearly fall out from under you. 

Blonde hair, almost white. Deep brown complexion with golden undertones. A strange glow just barely visible under the skin. You stare in awe at the scene unfolding in front of you and realize that the baby, now peering up at your brother through teary, familiar red eyes… is you. 

You guess your brother was always a little cagey about the circumstances of your birth and how you ended up in his care, but you had assumed this was because of his own potentially fucked up actions and not because of… whatever this is. You can’t even begin to comprehend what you’re seeing, points of information flying around in your brain as you try and connect the dots, and the cold sweat you break out in as a result is feverish and shaky. You try to breathe as steadily as you can, and push the overwhelmed panic rising up in your throat back down to your gut where you can come back to it later. 

Your brother holds you in his arms, your child self only beginning to calm down after a few light shushes, and he seems remarkably unperturbed by the whole situation. The capsule catches his attention again and he reaches down to pick it up with a leather gloved hand, unbothered by the likely incredible heat still coming from the metal, before he looks back to the child in his arms. 

There’s a moment where, if you look closely, you can almost see a flash of something like affection or sentiment cross his expression as he looks down at you, something that momentarily softens the stiffness in his face and rounds out all its hard angles. But it’s gone before you can truly see it, replaced with the stoic lines and pursed lips he always wore when regarding you, or anything else really. He walks away with your younger self and the capsule you came crashing down to earth in, and disappears into the woodline again. 

You don’t have the time to process what you’ve just seen before the feeling in your gut returns, pulling you back by something in your stomach until you start to fall. When you land, right side up and unusually steady, you’re somewhere you recognize, but during a time you were never present for. 

The town in the plains greets you like a reanimated corpse, like an ex-lover - familiar, but in a way that makes your blood turn to ice. The scenery is as you remember it, rolling hills and soft grass and endless expanses, but where you recall dilapidated houses and crumbling grave markers there are instead abundant fields and lively dwellings, with people bustling through the town center as if completely unaware of their future demise. No one seems to notice when you inexplicably appear at the edge of the street but you back away regardless, intending to hide yourself at the border of the village in case being seen by a local causes some sort of convoluted time paradox that ends up with you not existing. 

You don’t know why you’ve ended up here of all places, at some random ghost town that you and Karkat existed in for a miserable couple of weeks. You try to rack your brain for something important about this place, for some explanation as to why it’s been presented to you in the same way as the death of your brother and the unusual details of your birth, but the only thing you can remember about the area is how it made Karkat feel. You’ve never seen him so desolate, so frustrated, as you did when the two of you were forced to trek through the remains of his father’s domain. It was a constant reminder of the Signless’ death and ultimate failure to protect his people, and Karkat seemed to feel every ounce of that heartbreak and mourning as you’d just barely made it through the town’s ruins. 

You leave the town slowly, eyes peeled for any significant detail that might hint at why you’re here, but by the time you make it through to the other side you still don’t have a clue what you’re meant to be doing. You keep walking, if only to stop yourself from having a breakdown at the complete absurdity of your situation, and eventually you end up at the tall, white temple to Karkat’s dad. It’s in much better shape than when you saw it last, and the stone carving of the Signless greets you with sparkling details and larger than life dimensions. You stare up at it, maybe expecting it to start talking to you just to top off the otherwise incomprehensible journey you’ve been on, but a sound behind you catches your attention instead. 

Footsteps, then the sound of thunder cracking, and a second set of steps in your direction. You hurry behind a nearby pillar to shield yourself from whoever is approaching, and from your vantage point you see the intimidating figure of the Signless coming toward the temple, followed close behind by someone even larger than him. His dark robes and golden horns are oddly comforting to you, your brain supplying you with the only memory you have of meeting him, but the person behind him sends a much less reassuring feeling into your chest. 

She’s tall, huge, with bright horns that stretch high in the air and more hair than you’ve ever see on a person. Her bright makeup and fuschia clothing do little to minimize the massive trident in her hands, which crackles with power and looks like it could impale you as easily as a needle through fabric. You swallow and make yourself as small as possible behind the pillar while the two gods rendezvous in front of you, voices carrying easily through the open air. 

“Signless, baby!” calls the woman in a smooth, piercing voice. “Long time, no sea - looks like you’ve really made a mess outta things, huh?” 

Karkat’s father barely acknowledges her, and instead stares up at his own face carved in stone. “What are you talking about this time, Condy?” 

“I’m talking about all these goddamn humans you keeping letting live,” she explains. Her tone is friendly but biting, like she’s expecting a fight. “I tried to get rid of ‘em back in the day an’ all, but then you had to go and teach them how to farm and shit? And now you won’t even let my plague take them - it’s really harshing my vibe.” 

The Signless squints for a moment and then finally turns to face her, hiding his expression from you. “This plague is your doing?” he asks calmly. 

“Nah.” She smiles, and her mouth is full of impossibly sharp teeth. “My boss.” 

This brings the Signless pause, and he thinks for a moment before asking incredulously, “Calliope?” 

Her smile widens. “Wrong sibling.” 

“Caliborn?” he corrects. 

The Condesce’s smile drops and she rolls her eyes in irritation. “Yeah, man, I thought I just made that clear,” she explains. “Damn, you’re slow.” 

“It’s not worth it,” he insists instantly. “Whatever he’s offered you - it’s not worth all of this suffering.” 

“Hm, lemme see.” She places her hand on her chin in a mocking gesture of contemplation.   
“We’re talking about taking over this shitty planet and every other planet we can get our hands on, interstellar domination, power beyond anything you can imagine, no whiny pussies in dumb robes to get in my way - sounds pretty worth it to me.” 

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with,” he argues. He takes a few steps towards her and the trident in her hands grows louder as it crackles with electricity. “Have you not heeded any of the warnings in the ancient texts?” 

She waves an unenthused hand in his direction. “Man, fuck those things, they were written by a bunch of dead people anyways,” she says. “The fact of the matter is that Caliborn is offering me power and riches, and you? You’re in my goddamn way.” 

“You can’t take all of these people. It’ll be chaos.” 

“That’s kinda the point, chief,” she says, unperturbed. “How else is Caliborn supposed to rise to power? Ask nicely? Say pretty please? Man, I can’t believe I have to explain this shit to you, why did we ever put you in charge of anything-” 

“You can’t do this-” 

“I can actually.” The smile returns, and the Condesce looks Karkat’s dad up and down as if contemplating where exactly she’ll impale him. “You know, we could use someone like you on our side. Handsome, charismatic - I’ll give you a cut of my share when the time comes, if you want. Maybe we can work out a deal to save some of your little humans if you join me on this one.” 

“I refuse to participate in this bullshit,” he says easily. “I don’t want to fight you, Condesce, but I will if I have to.” 

“So you don’t want riches or power, which is really fucking dull of you honestly,” she says. “I guess that means I haven’t made myself clear enough about what’s at stake here.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“Leave my plague alone,” she starts happily, “or your little mini-me gets it.” 

The tone of the Signless’ voice becomes hard and closed-off, his posture defensive as he speaks. “You’re threatening my son?” 

The Condesce shrugs and gives her trident an appreciative onceover, even as her opponent grows angrier. “You’re lucky I’m bothering to give you an option at all,” she adds. “We can spin a wheel if you’re having trouble deciding, maybe flip a coin-” 

“I will not play games with the lives of others.” There’s a flash, and two smooth, black sickles appear in his hands. “I cannot choose between the life of my son or the fate of millions of innocent people, I won’t play your juvenile games-” 

The Condesce hisses through her teeth and gives the other god an apologetic expression. “Wrong answer, bud.” 

She raises her trident in the same moment that the Signless prepares his sickles, and just before the two of them charge at each other you’re pulled backwards into the blackness once again. 

Except when you open your eyes, the blackness remains. Even after your blink several times and needlessly rub at your eyelids there’s still nothing but a dark emptiness greeting you, surrounding you on all sides with no discernable end in sight. You look below you - what you think is below you - to try and find the ground, but you can’t see anything besides the endless, barren blackness. 

The panic that you’ve been just barely keeping at bay wells inside your throat and breaks out of you in a strangled sob. You have no idea where you are or what’s happening to you, you don’t know if you’re alive or in some kind of fucked up purgatory, you don’t know where Karkat and Rose are or if you’ll ever see them again - and now you’re crying alone in an endless void of fuck all nothing, where you can only assume you’ll be doomed for all of eternity. 

You don’t even know how you’re breathing in whatever space you’re in, how you’re gasping in breaths between heavy tears without suffocating immediately. It makes your sobs stop for just a moment as you try to preserve your oxygen, until you realize it’s ultimately pointless and the despair comes back tenfold. You don’t know how long you float aimlessly through the nothingness, sniffling and whimpering like a lost child, before something of note happens. 

You don’t think you’ll ever have the words in your vocabulary to describe what you see. From the blackness comes a sudden, violent explosion, unlike any you’ve ever witnessed, and it sends a tsunami of colors and particles towards you. You’re thrown backwards by the force of it all, skin tearing and burning by the cascade of material that ripples out from the source of the explosion, and the colors that flood the space around you are made of light that’s brighter than the sun. There are hues and tones you’ve never seen before, ones you didn’t even know existed, and the rushing wind that comes with them is unimaginably hot. It sends you ricocheting through the kaleidoscope of colors and lights, bounding aimlessly through pockets of teal and magenta, melting heat and freezing cold, and it’s only then that you stop being able to breathe. 

You close your eyes and will yourself back to Prospit before you run out of oxygen, but your thoughts are interrupted by a sound breaking through the deafening wind and debris. It’s something like a roar but much more vast, seeping out from the center of the explosion as if the universe itself were cracking in two, rattling your eardrums and setting your nerves on fire. You open your eyes in panic to try and find the source of the sound, expecting another equally extraordinary outburst, but what greets you somehow feels worse. 

A giant creature has emerged from the epicenter of the blast, probably the size of a planet and just as monstrous. Through the veil of gases and fragments you can just make out the creature’s enormous size and hard, green exterior, it’s red eyes glowing like a firestorm and piercing through even the thickest clouds of material. Those eyes flit around the newly created space in a wild frenzy, taking in the environment that was just inexplicably created from nothing, and the creature lets out another deafening, splintering bellow. Enormous red eyes search the space with unbridled rage and when they land on you, angry and blistering and turbulent, you gasp your last breath, and your vision goes black. 

* * *

You come to on the floor of the Prospit tower in almost the same state you left it in. Karkat has a protective hand on your side, grip warm and grounding, while Rose and a horned woman you don’t recognize look on in concern. Your vision swims as you slowly regain your consciousness and you can just hear Karkat’s voice at the edge of your mind, strained and nervous as he announces that you’ve returned. You try to sit up but a firm hand on your shoulder keeps you on your back, and you’re just able to mutter out Rose’s name before you turn to your side and promptly vomit on the floor. 

“Okay, that’s fine, alright,” comes Karkat’s frazzled tone. “Totally normal, totally fine.” 

A glass of water is pushed into your hand and Karkat keeps you just upright enough for you to guzzle the whole thing in just a few moments, throat straining with effort. You squeeze your eyes shut, temples drumming with a deep headache, and when you finally find your voice again you say into the room, as loudly as you can muster, “ _What the fuck?_ ” 

“Oh, so you don’t _normally_ pass out and start violently flickering in and out of existence for no reason?” Karkat asks manically. “Because I was under the impression that this was a totally normal human thing and not a cause for concern at all and definitely not some kind of indication that there’s something deeply wrong with you.” 

“Karkat, holy shit,” you grumble with a hand in his direction. “Can we bring the volume down like a thousand notches for a hot second, I think I was just reborn and my ears are a little fucking sensitive right now-” 

“How many times is it now that you’ve almost died in front of me? Two?” he continues. His grip has moved to your arm and when you finally look at his face you’re shocked to see tears streaming down his cheeks. “Do humans have this many near death experiences in the span of one year or are you just especially talented when it comes to putting yourself in dangerous situations that might result in your immediate harm? Is there a class you’ve been taking about all the various ways to give me a fucking heart attack, some kind of Fuck Karkat Seminar designed specfically to make me worry about you, because holy shit it’s been effective!” 

“What did you see?” 

Rose’s voice breaks through Karkat’s mounting alarm, and she sounds as calm and unperturbed as ever. It makes you angry all over again. 

“When you were gone,” she adds in explanation. “What did you see?” 

Three pairs of eyes look towards you, and you feel yourself shy away from them. You falter for a moment, trying to keep your gaze away from Karkat as images of his father surface in your mind, and when you answer it’s only partially a lie. 

“Memories,” you say simply. “Old memories and shit.” 

Rose frowns. “Anything else?” 

“I dunno…” Your head is pounding and you’re drenched in sweat. You want another glass of water. “Some big fucking… dude?”

“A big dude,” Rose repeats. “How big are we talking?” 

“Like…” The image of the creature returns to you like phantom pain, and a cold shudder slithers down your spine. “Like the size of a fucking planet. And not a shitty little planet like Earth, I mean a big ass planet with at least thirteen moons, maybe more-” 

Rose stops listening to you in favor of going back to her writing desk and rifling through some of the papers there, only returning to you when she’s picked up a particular sheet. She presents a hastily scribbled visage of the creature to you, a bit primitive in its depiction but still managing to capture the size and ferocity of the beast better than you could’ve described it yourself, and you feel all of the blood rush out of your face. 

“Yeah, that’s the guy,” you mutter. 

Karkat makes a noise in the back of his throat and snatches the paper out of Rose’s hand. “Wait, is this-” 

The horned woman speaks up, “It has to be-” 

“Caliborn,” Rose confirms. “The primordial god of discord and chaos, Calliope’s brother, part of the reason the universe exists and possibly the reason it will stop existing-” 

“A real piece of shit,” Karkat adds, and the other woman nods in quiet agreement. 

“Why the fuck would I see him?” you ask. “What does he have to do with anything?” 

There’s a pause, and then Rose gives you a sad, pitying smile. “There’s a lot you don’t understand, Dave.” 

Anger flares up in your chest again and your tone goes hard. “Well do you wanna try enlightening me then, Rose?” you ask loudly. “Or are you just gonna leave me in the dark again like you have for the last five years? That seems to be your favorite thing to do these days, just leave good ol’ Dave sitting around with his thumb up his ass while you go do all the important shit by yourself-” 

“Stop,” she instructs simply and you look up at her and notice, for the first time, how tired her eyes are. “You’re already overwhelmed - if I try to explain any of this to you you’ll just have another episode. You need rest.” 

She’s right. “No,” you say stubbornly. “I came all this fucking way to find you so I’m gonna sit my ass right here next to my puddle of puke and you’re gonna explain to me what the fuck is going on.” 

Rose sighs, and the woman next to her lays a comforting hand on her back. “There are some people I want you to meet,” she says slowly, as if placating a child. “They’ll be able to explain things better than I can, but they won’t be here for a while-” 

“Fine, fine, alright.” You let Karkat help you get to your feet, legs wobbly beneath you. “I get it, it’s bedtime for Dave, you’re sending me to my room without supper and I’ll just have to starve until breakfast tomorrow.” 

“You know it’s not like that,” she says quietly. You don’t see this conversation going anywhere. 

“Sure, whatever,” you wave her off. “Y’all got a guest room in this fucking tower or is it only stairs?” 

Rose directs a pleading look to the woman at her side, who nods and brings you and Karkat to a small hallway off the main room. You’re led to a similar looking room nearby, and though the walk is short you start to feel your legs giving out by the time you settle onto the overly plush bed. Karkat keeps a protective hand on your shoulder, warm and gentle, and turns to address the other woman. 

“Thanks, Kanaya,” he says, with enough familiarity in his voice to pique your curiosity. “We’ll talk later, alright?” 

She nods. “Sure.” 

You expect her to leave then, but she hesitates for a moment. A well-groomed eyebrow raises, green irises flicking briefly in your direction, and Karkat’s hand circles around aimlessly in answer. A series of shifting facial expressions and head nods are exchanged in some kind of secret code that you don’t understand, and the end result is a light jade flush over Kanaya’s cheeks and a pointed chin tilt from Karkat. You watch with parted lips as Kanaya eventually excuses herself, and when you give Karkat an imploring look he just shrugs you off. 

“We’re old friends,” he explains. “Related, actually.” 

You raise an eyebrow. “Your sister?” 

“No, more like…” He pauses and his gaze drifts upwards as he tries to connect his undoubtedly complicated relation to Kanaya. “Closer to something you humans would call an ‘aunt.’” 

“Huh.” You’ll ask for more details on this later, when your head isn’t pounding quite so hard. 

“I don’t think you’re up to hearing about the intricacies of my family tree right now,” Karkat correctly assumes. He crouches next to you and carefully starts to remove your boots and socks, as he’s become insistent on doing lately. You’re secretly much more grateful for it than you’re willing to admit, especially as your own hands tremble at your sides from the strain of the last few hours. 

“Actually uh,” you manage to say through the thickness in your throat. “I kinda lied earlier when I said I only saw a bunch of memories while I was out.” 

“Yeah?” One of your boots removed, the other now slowly being unlaced. 

“I saw your dad, too.” You swallow when Karkat’s fingers pause around your ankle. “And some other woman, like they were getting into an argument-”

“I don’t want to do this right now,” Karkat says, effectively rendering you silent. He keeps his head down and finishes taking your shoes off, then looks up at you with wet eyes. “It’s been a long day, and you scared the shit out of me _again_ , and if I have to hear some sort of dramatic, revealing information about my father I think I might just fucking lose it.” 

You take a breath. A tremor runs through your core. “Okay.” 

“Okay.” Karkat takes off his own shoes and joins you on the bed, pushing you into a more comfortable position after you stay seated on the edge of the mattress for a second too long. 

You roll onto your side to look at him, take in the darkness under his eyes and the tension in his jaw. “I’m sorry,” you say, though you’re not sure what about. 

“Don’t be sorry,” he mutters. “It’s not your fault your delicate human body reacted so violently to the stress of the last few days, and I can only imagine what kind of long term effects Prospit might have on a mortal.” 

“I’m kinda… freaked out,” you admit, even as the words tremble on their way past your lips. “I don’t know what any of this shit means, and I saw a bunch of fucked up nonsense while I was out, and nothing makes any sense and Rose is so - different, I-” 

A placating hand comes up to your cheek and Karkat looks at you with more understanding than you were expecting. “I know,” he says. “Just like everything else we’ve had to deal with, this has somehow become more of a clusterfuck than either of us were anticipating. I’m starting to think someone upstairs is out to get you, specifically.” 

“Or you,” you add. 

Karkat just shrugs, his mouth twisting into a frown. “Let’s just get some sleep,” he suggests. “We’ve had to deal with enough unprecedented bullshit in the last few hours that I’m actually starting to feel fatigued for the first time in my life and it’s not something I’m really fond of. I don’t know how you people function when you can feel tired at the drop of a fucking hat and I’d prefer for the feeling to go away sooner rather than later so let’s just… fucking sleep.” 

“Yeah,” you agree, already starting to close your eyes. “Yeah, sleep sounds good.” 

“Try not to vacillate furiously between different regions of space time, if you can.” 

“I’ll do my fucking best.” 

Karkat loops an arm around your waist and you try to relax against him, taut muscles and trembling nerves unwinding slowly but surely as you drift off to sleep. Nails run down your back in a soothing motion, and you force yourself to get rid of any stray thoughts - Rose, Bro, Caliborn - so you can finally rest after the unyielding events of the day. When you eventually slip into unconsciousness some time later, Karkat’s body a steady warmth at your side, you dream of little more than blackness and an endless, expansive void. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whats poppin peeps this is what i meant by the plot yeehaw can only hope that it makes any fucking sense at all because i have no idea what im doing c: if it doesnt make sense now hopefully itll make sense later, and if not then... fuck me i guess lmao
> 
> anyways im furloughed for the next 8 to 10 weeks so ill be writing a lot! look forward to that
> 
> thank u all for being very sweet and lovely!! i hope everyone has/had a good holiday <3


	18. Chapter 18

Karkat is unnervingly calm when you tell him about his dad. You watch his face closely for any major shift in his expression, any indication that he’s going to burst into tears or scream or overturn a nearby piece of furniture, but you get little more than furrowed brows and one downturned corner of his mouth. His eyes give him away more than anything, and you follow them as they flick around the room, making connections you can’t see and coming to a conclusion he doesn’t voice for a long moment afterwords. 

“That… makes sense,” he says quietly, voice calmer than you had anticipated. You can’t tell if his dull response is from the overwhelming stimuli of the last several hours, the exhaustion that comes from dealing with unbelievable bullshit for too long, or if he’s just felt too much grief already to bear shouldering any more. “His death would’ve been Heroic if - if he -” 

“He was just trying to save his kid,” you offer amidst his stuttering. “And the other chick really didn’t give him much of a fucking choice, I mean, killing a bunch of random humans obviously wasn’t gonna fly.” 

“It would’ve,” Karkat points out, “with some other god.” 

“Yeah.” You shrug and cast a careful glance at the set of Karkat’s back, the line of his shoulders. “Guess that was the problem.” 

Karkat nods and then you see his face harden, just slightly. “So the Condesce killed my dad,” he says, “then took over his role as Death and put me under her command.” His eyes come up to yours, deep red and tumultuous. 

“She needed to keep an eye on you,” you realize. “So you didn’t pull the same shit as him.” 

There’s a pause, and then Karkat shakes his head with a bitter laugh that’s verging on hysterical. “You can’t make this shit up,” he says, with absolutely no humor in his tone. “My boss killed my dad and is babysitting me so I don’t upend her plans to, what, destroy the fucking world? So the big green monster who invented the concept of being evil will make her co-ruler of the universe when they become intergalactic dictators?” 

You open your mouth to offer some kind of helpful words, but you come up empty and instead find yourself shrugging helplessly. Put into context that succinctly, everything seems so comically outlandish that you have a hard time conceptualizing it at all, nevermind finding a feasible solution to any of the present issues. A similarly unhinged laugh bubbles out of your chest, your body too tired to repress it, and your hands come up to gesture animatedly in place of providing any actual help. 

“Fuck, Karkat, I-” You shake your head and laugh again. “When you put it that way-” 

“It sounds like I’m blowing smoke up your ass!” he exclaims in agreement. 

“It’s like Calliope made a chart of all the horrible things that could possibly happen to a person and then blindly started throwing darts at it,” you add. “Like this is a grade school writing project and some kid just went fucking buckwild adding as many tragic plotpoints as possible because they don’t understand how life works yet.” 

“Nevermind all the bullshit that’s going on with _you_ ,” Karkat adds with a finger in your direction. His lips have quirked back up into a smile. “Which is somehow happening directly adjacent to the complete and utter shitshow that is my family history and work-life balance.” 

“Dude, my sister has been living in the realm of the dead for the last five years,” you say, speaking truth to the event for the first time since you became privy to this specific development. It comes out as a disbelieving, breathy chortle, and you press your hands to your cheeks when they start to ache from the odd grin you can’t stop pulling. 

“You spent an hour yesterday half-conscious and reality hopping to a bunch of random, disastrous points in time,” Karkat adds with a throaty chuckle, “which I can only assume was the universe’s way of reiterating just how monumentally fucked up everything is.” 

“As if I needed the reminder!” You have a hard time getting out your next words through your giggles. “You and I - we spent _months_ walking from - from Alternia back to my house, only to end up right where we _started_ , because my fucking oracle of a sister didn’t feel the need to clue us in-” 

“I _work here_ ,” Karkat adds with an exasperated toss of his hands. “We were twenty feet from her at the beginning and didn’t even _know_ -” 

“ _And she’s fucking your aunt!_ ” you just manage to get out in a strained tone before you dissolve into a fit of overwhelmed laughter, knuckles dragging over your eyes as tears leak onto your skin. 

Karkat shrieks in delight and drapes himself over your lap, barely able to speak through convulsions of laughter. “She is!” he announces loudly. “God, she fucking is!” 

You fall all over each other between giggles and cackles, laughing for so long that it eventually turns into crying, your throat starting to hurt from exertion and your expression cracking to reveal everything sitting just below the jokes and grins. Pink tears stain the golden sheets of your otherwise pristine bed and Karkat clenches one hand into your sleeve while the other desperately covers his face as he cries. Your own tears slip down your cheeks and pool under your neck, drying on your skin even as more collect around them. You lie on your backs next to each other long after the sounds of laughing shrivel and warp into half-choked sobs and breaths that get stuck halfway out of your chest. Your fingers thread between Karkat’s, and you slowly feel yourself reach an emotional flatline following a confusing, exhausting series of outbursts. 

The elaborate ceiling greets your vision, intricately carved and eye-wateringly yellow. You blink out a few residual tears, and Karkat squeezes your hand. 

“What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into?” you ask. 

“I don’t know.” A final, bitter laugh. Then again, “I don’t know.”

* * *

“If the Condesce is actually under the influence of Caliborn then we have a huge fucking problem on our hands,” Karkat says to you sometime later, after you both take a few moments to chill the fuck out; you had your time to lose your shit, now you have to actually figure things out, unfortunately. “And by ‘huge’ I mean _cosmically huge,_ like basically the equivalent of a giant fucking meteor crashing into earth and throwing the planet’s axis off balance, effectively wrecking our entire shit and killing millions of innocent people in a deadly, vaporizing blast.” 

“Yeah, something about the literal incarnation of every bad thing that’s ever existed having control over one of the most powerful gods on the planet doesn’t sit right with me,” you agree. “Consider my asshole extremely clenched on the matter.” 

“Consider it considered,” Karkat says around a mouthful of apple candies. You don’t remember bringing food in with you, but sometime in the last few hours you found yourself hankering for a fistful of sugary snacks and then they’d just… appeared in the room with you. Karkat helps himself to a concerning amount of them and the jar never seems to get any less full, even as he unscrupulously shoves another half dozen into his mouth. 

“I didn’t _really_ pay attention in school because most of it was useless garbage if not complete and utter horse shit, but hasn’t this happened before?” you ask. You eat your own unnecessarily large portion of candy and speak through the stickiness in your teeth. “Caliborn trying to bust outta the underworld or whatever?” 

“Yeah but it was way before our time,” Karkat answers with a grumble. “None of the current gods were even around when it happened, and the ones that existed before them apparently took care of it.” 

“And wrote it down, yeah?” you recall learning from one of your visions. 

Karkat nods. “Yeah.” A few more apple candies disappear. “In a language that no one speaks anymore.” 

You don’t have the energy to act surprised or annoyed at the news that the only solution to your problem is written in a language no one can understand, and instead shove more food in your mouth as a response. 

“Sick,” you say. “Yeah, I mean, why would any of the gods controlling the planet think to translate it or anything? Why fucking bother, not like they’ll need that info anytime soon, might as well leave the old dusty book filled with a step-by-step guide on how to save the universe in the attic somewhere to rot. Awesome plan, guys.” 

“Some of the gods studied the language of the Ancient Denizens, not all of them were completely incompetent,” Karkat points out. “You’ll never guess who.” 

“Your dad,” you say flatly. 

Karkat gives you a grim smile. “And the Psiionic.” 

Dead and deader.

“Cool, yeah, of course.” You spend a moment digging sticky sugar out from under your nails. “So we’re pretty well and truly fucked, then?” 

“Maybe,” comes another voice. You turn to find Rose draped elegantly in the doorway to your room, sparkling gold and painfully alive. “Or maybe not.” 

You feel your muscles stiffen at her presence, and cast your eyes down to the gilded bedspread rather than look at her any longer. 

“I’m sure you’ve got some kind of enlightened opinion on the matter?” you ask. 

“In my experience,” she starts, “I have often declared myself hopelessly fucked sideways in a situation only to later, inexorably, find my virtue restored.” 

“Well that’s nice for you,” you say bitterly. “But in _my_ experience I pretty much stayed fucked the whole time - sometimes more fucked, even, just a really obscene, gratuitous penetration of every orifice I’ve got with absolutely no regard for my own personal choices or bodily autonomy.” 

“You really haven’t changed at all since I saw you last.” Said fondly, and with a nearly imperceptible hint of sadness. “Can’t go more than a few minutes without referencing an orifice or a sexual act or a phallic image. It’s a wonder you didn’t come to terms with your sexuality sooner.” 

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t in the library having my sexual awakening while looking at female anatomy books like someone I know,” you remind her, glancing up at her form again. “Telling mommy I was off to study the sciences like a good little girl when in reality I was looking at drawings of titties for hours at a time and feeling some fucking way about it.” 

“As if you weren’t having vivid fantasies about the leatherworker you apprenticed under at the ripe age of sixteen,” she counters. “Have you forgotten the day that you came home and expressed to me, in minute, homoerotic detail, the exact planes of his hands, his callouses, his fingertips? Was that not a remarkably gay thing for a sixteen year old to-” 

“Why are you in here?” you interrupt. The familiar back and forth jabs have started to make your chest hurt; it’s not the same as it used to be, and yet, it hasn’t changed at all. “What do you want?” 

Rose barely even blinks at your sudden change in tone. “Our guests will be arriving soon,” she says simply. “I wanted to catch you up to speed, before then.” 

“How benevolent of you,” you say, “to grace me with the honor of knowing what the fuck is going on. Glad to know I’ve finally been deemed worthy to receive information directly related to my actual life.” 

A pause. Rose’s shoulder comes away from where it had been resting on the door frame. “You don’t always have to make things difficult, you know.” 

You catch her eyes - a deep, fiery purple. “As if you haven’t done that already?” 

She holds your gaze in the easy way she’s always been able to, forcing you to look away first. “I’m not sure,” she says carefully, “what you want me to tell you.” 

“Maybe start with the truth?” you offer sarcastically. “Why the fuck are you down here, maybe? Or, how about, why did I watch you die five years ago only to find out you’re not actually dead? Why did you let me _think_ you were dead for all those years, that’s a pretty big one. Why did I have some kind of psychotic fucking breakdown yesterday - I don’t know, Rose, they’re all good points! You pick!” 

There’s a silence as your words curl around Rose, and Karkat gives you a nervous look from his perch on the bed next to you. You grit your teeth and stare Rose down until she decides to deign you with an answer. 

“I don’t know that you’ll find the truth entirely satisfactory,” she says eventually, more honest than you were expecting. “There are still gaps in my knowledge, still things I don’t understand, and I know half an explanation will do little to satiate you-” 

“Try me,” you offer. A nod towards the large, gaudy armchair in the corner of the room, closer to you than the door but still quite far away. 

Rose hesitates for only a moment before sitting down, and you watch quietly as she arranges her body just so, settling her limbs in a specific way so as to hide the otherwise obvious tension in her muscles. She holds herself up with proper posture, and if you didn’t know her as well as you do you’d assume she was the epitome of poise and elegance. In reality, you think she’s just tired. 

“Where should I start?” 

You blink, consider the dozens of questions you’ve had in your head for weeks, months, years. “That day in the yard,” you say eventually, “when I found you half-dead and being swallowed up by some kind of… blackhole. What the hell was that about?” 

She shifts as if uncomfortable at your question, but you find it hard to believe that she wasn’t anticipating it. “That was, partially, the workings of Caliborn,” she says slowly, and Karkat startles next to you. 

“The guy who’s trying to destroy the universe?” you clarify. “That Caliborn?” 

“That Caliborn,” she confirms with a small sigh. “He and I… were in contact long before that day. He’s part of why I began to explore the occult to begin with, in order to better hone my powers as a Seer.” 

Your brain skips over the part about powers and seeing; you don’t quite have the capacity to delve into that just yet. “And you just thought it was a cool idea to commune with the dude responsible for every shitty thing that’s ever happened?” 

“I didn’t know it was him, for a long time,” she defends. “He is remarkably good at shielding his identity when he wants to be. I had assumed that receiving any sort of influence from beyond was the work of Skaia, and accepted it as such until I had reason to believe otherwise.” 

“And when was that?” 

“When I became ill.” Her mouth turns up into a grimace. “You remember that.” 

“Yeah, pretty fucking clearly.” A shudder runs through your core as images of Rose, pale and sickly, come back to you. “You were all… weak and boney and-”

“Empty,” she finishes. The word rings out between you and you watch her expression fall away into something you don’t recognize. 

“And he did that to you?” 

“In a way,” she says. “He led me to the rituals and spells that caused the illness, but I’m the one who completed them. I was told they were meant to help me realize my true powers and give me the ability to travel to Prospit to truly ascend, and it was only once I was too far gone that I understood he had made me a vessel for the Void.” 

“The Void?” you ask and Karkat pipes up beside you. 

“It’s the place that exists between Derse and Caliborn’s domain,” he explains. “Basically a big, open space full of fuck-all nothing that’s nearly impossible to traverse if you don’t know what you’re doing.” 

Rose nods in agreement. “It exists between Skaia and Calliope as well,” she adds. “Anyone who wishes to have an audience with her has to pass through it, and most people end up lost for the rest of eternity.” 

You shake your head, try to wrap your mind around the information you’re receiving. “And so,” you try, “that thing coming out of you, that was-” 

“The Void itself.” Rose watches while you struggle to comprehend this and then sets her jaw. “I believe… I believe the purpose of that last spell was to coerce you into the Void, and kill me as a result.” 

“Coerce me,” you repeat, and the comforting, alluring presence of the smoky gray Void tickles back up your spine like it once did all those years ago. 

“Yes,” she says. “But you resisted, somehow, and managed to interrupt the spell-” 

“Because I thought you were dying.” 

“Because I was.” She swallows. “I am fairly certain that had the spell been left to continue, the forces of the Void would have consumed me entirely. That was the point, really, for the spell to end in our deaths.” 

“But it didn’t,” you point out. “And you ended up here.” 

Rose shifts at this, and the line of her back becomes less straight and taught, sagging down around her shoulders. “No, not exactly.” At your raised eyebrows she continues, “Caliborn was… _displeased_ with your intervention in the spell. I was supposed to die upon its completion and take you with me, but your actions briefly severed my connection to him and so he opted for the next best thing.” 

Karkat’s voice is a low whisper next to you. “You don’t mean-” 

“He sent me to Derse.” The words themselves seem heavy out of Rose’s mouth, and you can see in her tired eyes and sinking posture how weary she is just from saying them. 

“Fuck,” Karkat voices. “How… how long were you down there?” 

Rose’s vibrant eyes have gone gray around the edges. “Years.” 

Karkat shakes his head, distraught. “How the fuck did you survive?” 

“You know first hand how annoyingly difficult it can be to kill humans,” she tells him. You think she means it as a joke, but it comes off unnervingly serious. “And I’m not exactly average, in that right.” 

“Is that what happened?” You bring your hand up to your own hair, referring to the stark black streak that has since appeared in Rose’s. 

“Ah, yes,” she reaches up to run her fingers through her multicolored locks, and the look on her face is very far away. “Something of a badge of honor, I suppose. Or a participation trophy.” 

“And you managed to escape?” Karkat asks. “Derse is a huge labyrinth, it’s basically _designed_ to trap people, how in Calliope’s name did you find your way out?” 

The color rushes back into Rose’s face all at once, splaying pink over her cheeks and dusting purple into her irises. “Kanaya found me,” she says fondly. “As an underworld deity she was more than familiar with the territory, and was able to bring me here where I could recover. I’ve been here for a couple years now, working on realizing my powers-” 

“A couple years,” you repeat. Anger prickles at the back of your neck again. “And you didn’t think to come find me during any of those years?” 

Rose tilts her head at you, face dropping away from tenderness and into colder territory. “I don’t think you understand what you’re asking,” she says and your jaw clenches at her tone. “The ancient denizen of suffering and malevolence has tried not once but twice to kill me thus far and the only reason I am still alive to tell you this is because Prospit shields me from his gaze. He has probably assumed that I am either still being tortured in Derse or have already died from the abuse, and if I were to step foot out of Prospit and alert him of my presence I find it more than likely that Caliborn would kill me on the spot. And mind you, I don’t mean that he would kill me in a way that would even allow me to return to Prospit, no, he would kill me so entirely that my very soul would cease to exist. So no. I didn’t go looking for you.” 

You swallow, and realize with a start that maybe the outrage and betrayal you’ve been feeling for the past day or so have been misplaced. It’s an odd feeling, to realize that your anger is less righteous than you thought while also finding out that everything is far worse than you previously understood. You open your mouth, maybe to apologize, but nothing comes out. 

“I _wanted_ to find you, Dave,” Rose says in your silence. “I spent years thinking about finding you, but I had to trust my intuition as a Seer, and as your sister, that you would find your way to me instead.” 

Something wells in your throat, maybe tears, maybe a scream, but you tamp it down; the more Rose talks the more it sounds like you don’t have the time to consider your feelings on the matter. What’s nagging you more than anything though, now that you have some answers, is one more question. 

“So then…” You clear your throat. “Why is Caliborn so hell bent on taking you out? And, I guess, taking me out too?” 

Rose lets a breath out through her nose and leans against the back of her chair a little more. “Because he knows we’ll be the ones to stop him.” 

Karkat’s eyes land on you, gaze heavy enough to feel it under your skin, and the expression on Rose’s face is nearly unreadable. It’s almost neutral, _almost_ , except for the faint wrinkle that’s appeared between her eyebrows, a virtually imperceptible indication that she is, at her core, scared. 

“Is this all part of our grand destiny or whatever?” you ask, referring to the letter she sent you all those years ago. “A couple of kids from bumfuck nowhere are gonna be the ones to stop Caliborn because all the gods are too self-absorbed to do it themselves?” 

“ _Destiny_ is a strong word,” Rose comments. Another wrinkle manifests at the corner of her mouth. “I’d say it’s more like a combination of unprecedented bad luck and the gross incompetence of higher powers.” 

You sigh and swipe a hand over your face. The amount of information you’ve gotten in the last twenty minutes has started to rattle your brain, and you somehow have more questions now than when you started. 

“But so,” you try, “how the fuck are we supposed to-” 

“Oh!” Rose perks up suddenly and her eyes flick to the doorway, irises glowing faintly in the brightly lit room. “Our guests are here.” 

She stands and gestures for you and Karkat to follow her, and you hold back a frustrated groan at just how little you seem to understand anything that’s happening. 

Back in the main room of the tower you’re met with an interesting sight. There are two people present who, by all intents and purposes, seem fairly normal at first glance. Rose embraces each of them and exchanges a few pleasantries while you and Karkat stand a reasonable distance away, and it’s only after a few moments of heavily scrutinizing them that you begin to notice several things. 

Two people, one short and angular, the other taller and soft. Blonde hair, tan skin, and appearances that would be unremarkable if not for the oddly shaped glasses they’re both wearing. The shorter one has sharp, pointy looking shades while the other is adorned in heart-shaped lenses, and if you squint you can just make out the glowing eyes behind the glass, a set of orange and a set of pink. Your eyebrows furrow. 

When you look away from them you can just see, in the corner of your vision, a faint glow emanating from them both. 

“Dave, this is Dirk and Roxy,” Rose introduces, mood elevated at their presence. “They’re-” 

“Skaian,” you finish for her. 

Roxy nods. You think you see them wink under the glasses. “You got it, champ.” 

“And-” Your eyes flick between the pair and Rose as an odd sensation flits down your back. “They look like us.” 

“Also true!” Roxy remarks. “You’re nailing this so far.”

You swallow, and glance towards the other. “You wanna explain that?” 

The guy, who has been silent up until this point, gives you a stiff shrug. “It’s kind of a long story.” 

You hum and drag a wooden chair from the corner of the room over to where everyone’s gathered, several pairs of eyes watching your every move. The chair greets your ass with a light creak and you stretch your legs out in a lounging position, arms crossed over your chest while you consider the group in front of you. You sigh, once, and set your jaw.

“Luckily for you,” you say, “I’ve got plenty of time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took two months i had a series of odd and increasingly ridiculous things happen to me recently, heres an Exposition Chapter to make up for it  
> also roxy and dirk yeehaw
> 
> ill be back hopefully sooner this time with some more shit for yall, i appreciate everyone being patient and lovely! i would take a bullet for each of u individually


End file.
